Wondering about some online workers' comprehension

How does it happen that when I post Freelancer Available ads, other freelancers still apply to me?

Copy of the ad is clear: "I am available to provide service to your company."

Title of the ad is also clear: Available - (insert freelancer title here)

And when these people write in their cover letters, they are obviously very fluent in the English language.

So yeah, I do not get why freelancers pretend to not comprehend simple ads like this. Much of our work as freelancers rely on quick understanding of written instructions. This kind of comprehension simply will not do for online workers.

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On Internet Service Providers - What ISP do you use?

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) breathe life into the career (maybe even the personal life) of the online worker.  Without an internet connection, you just can't work.  No contacts, no communications, no spadework (for us who enter websites from across the globes).  Without a proper ISP, we  cannot earn a living.

When I started online work,  I decided to subscribe, not to the basic plan, but to the faster plan, even if it was more expensive and I wasn't earning  yet.  Since it was going to be for work, might as well be equipped for it.  Not to mention I have the patience of a 2 yr old for loading over the net, I might end up chucking out my PC out the window even if it was the net that was quite slow.

That was in 2007.  We got the 1.2Mbps plan from a Quezon City ISP. Services were fine and uneventful then.  Now in 2010, when the little broadband dongles say they deliver up to 3Mbps, I still had the 1.2Mbps until October 2010 (and still paying double the basic plan).  It was only this November that the ISP called and said they were upgrading my speed to 1.5 Mbps and subtracting PhP200 from the subscription cost.

I noticed though, that :

• Around June this year, my connection always dies around 2PM and stays that way for 2-3 hours.  You can imagine how distraught I can get because I don't get to do any work, and had to extend to the work hours until beyond midnight.
• I noticed this September?  October? upto now (this very moment) the lights in my modem always has the hiccups and dies and resurrects every so often, sometimes every 5 minutes, every 15 minutes, etc.
• And yes, the phone included in the service is ALWAYS dead.  Causing another inconvenience to call cellphones instead of the land line service.  Hmp.  (Yes, my phone is dead right now.)

I have learned to ignore this since it's happening frequently, and I thought maybe it's just my area, etc.  Now I find out an online contact with the same ISP has the same net and phone problem.  My son's classmate also told him they have the same situation at home.  

What is happening?  

I have shared this concern with the counter person while paying bills, she just told me to file a complaint to services so that line men can come over.  Oh, what she told me exactly was TO CALL and file a complaint.  I find that funny because I just said the line was dead.  Yes, I can call using the cell but it's still funny to make me call.

I can always change ISPs, but my sons agree this damn blasted service is still the most reliable for their gaming needs compared to other ISPs. So yes, I am a hostage of my own ISP.  Boo.


How about you? What ISP do you use and is it reliable and quick for surfing, gaming and web maintenance?


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Black Hat SEO doesn't Work. (Yes, stating the obvious.)

So I just saw this ad for online workers looking for "Black Hat SEO"

Of course, the client wanted to be on top of the Google search results.  It was a strange request, to use questionable means to be no. 1 at the list.  If this were true, the person needed to be explained to that black hat techniques are easily monitored AND penalized.  That is, Google bans you and all the efforts you did to cheat will lead to your page not being indexed at all.

The strange thing is, because of the big budget allotted, online workers were actually bidding to do the project.

Tsk tsk. As an online worker, isn't it a given that you should be looking out for a client's best interests?  By taking care of a client, and providing legitimate advice and expertise, the big budget projects will follow you around later.  

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Pilipinas Kay Ganda Website Disaster Could Have Been Totally Avoided

I had the usual reaction over the new Department of Tourism campaign, about using a slogan that is not immediately recognizable to its target audience, blablabla, and that was the end of it.

My hair stood on its end though when I heard the news that the Pilipinas kay Ganda website URL, beautifulpilipinas.com, would lead to a porn site if you change one letter in the URL.

I was wondering why this mishap happened. Ok fine, I admit I'm indignant about it.

For us web developers who are also concerned about Usability and Search Engine Optimization, I believe URLs should be carefully chosen.  It represents yourself, organization, and in this case, your country.  New website names should be chosen :

1)  to immediately tell what the site is about
2)  for ease of use of the target users
3)  for easy finding of search engines or SEO

1)  Immediately tell what the site is about


I encourage anybody who wants to set up any webpage, whether a free blogspot account or a paid domain to carefully think over and list a bunch URLs.  Your URL or website name should clearly state what your website is all about.  For beautifulpilipinas, fine.  That passed that step.

2)  My next consideration, for usability:

• Is your chosen name easy to remember?  
• Is it short or at least an acceptable length?
• Did you put in dashes, underscores or numbers that might confuse your searchers?  Note that these are fine, as long as kept to a minimum and easy to remember.
• Are you using spellings that might confuse your searchers?
• Are there synonyms, same words with different meaning, that might confuse your users?

And the last 2 points is where things went awry.  Pilipinas, that stands for a country, can also stand for persons, the Pilipina. Westernize the words. Filipinas is also used to stand for our country, and course our women are more popularly called Filipina here and in other countries.

3.  Optimize for Search Engines  

To optimize your URL for search engines, it is as simple as following steps 1 and 2. But there are other things your web-developer should do in this step, and that could have avoided the disaster of the tourism website.

For the web developers-marketers part, we practice a standard procedure of searching out the potential URLs that can be used where we find:

-  related keywords being searched

-  how many searches have been done for the searched keywords in the past month or year

-  etc. etc.

This way, you can advice the client what may happen when using a particular URL, and let the client choose what suits the purpose.

Some people would prefer using the barely searched keyword, and is willing to take on the challenge of  getting people to visit. If people pick it up, then only you will be identified with that keyword.  Other people prefer to be safer, and will pick names with keywords already being searched.  

With this step alone, you will quickly see there are no searches for beautifulpilipinas.  Free advice:  Since the Philippines' tourism has been around for sometime you can think up and search for more words that people are actually using now when they want to visit or vacation in the Philippines.  Then you can think more of what words can be used for your taglines, etc.

Now search for beautifulfilipinas and you will see the obvious.  Lots of searches, and other keywords with searches are "beautiful filipina", "beautiful filipina women", and "dating filipina".  By now, even if you cannot imagine these could lead to a porn site, you will at least get that the country's synonym stands for its women as well.  And it is easy to read, what is being pertained to here is another kind of tourism industry that is not so wholesome as the Department of Tourism would prefer.
- -

Looking at it another way, the real winner in this situation is the website owner of  beautifulfilipinas.com because, by applying these simple steps mentioned above, now an entire country is looking at their homepage.  Lucky bastards.

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Want to be an Ideas Leader? Share! Share! Share!

The other day, my teammate was asking why oh why some net people are just stingy with their knowledge. 

One person had this problem re: SEO, and was asking for help what to do.  This person had the "Experts" in his/ her friends list, so my teammate was expecting that these active proponents will answer the question posted.  But sorry to hear, those self-proclaimed experts did not even bother to answer this call for help.  These people ask a lot in terms of fees from companies so they can teach techniques regarding the internet.   And yet, they won't even help out a fellow online worker.  (And my teammate swears the stuff they teach for an exorbitant fee is not even updated.  LOLzzz)

When I started studying the best net practices 3 years ago, one of the first points I picked up as truly important is :  To succeed online, be useful to other people. Help others out as much as you can, and you will find your online experience very enjoyable and fulfilling.

This is what I see from my favorite net gurus.  They live what they preach.  The Ideas Leaders I truly admire are always friendly and ever open to share their knowledge.  They accept friend requests on Facebook, so I get updated on the newest stuff on the net that otherwise I would have found out about next year.  They also respond to questions in private messages and their walls.  They share what they know, and this sharing comes back to them tenfold.  They are truly recognized in the field as leaders.

Anyway, the ending of the story is, my teammate was exasperated with the lack of interest to help from these people.  Being the usual generous-hearted person she is, she answered all the questions and gave more tips how to handle the problem.

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Freelance Worker Expectations from Family

One of the touchier subjects a freelance worker at home commonly faces is:  Family members expect you to have everything done in the home (even beyond human hours), because you are there at home!

I am sure this happens to both men and women home workers.  You are the one at home, and your spouse expects you to have everything done by the time they get home.  They're tired, you should not be, because after all, you are JUST AT HOME.  You should have done the chores, because you are JUST at home.  .  Your geriatric mom expects you to be everywhere they go, because you are JUST at home.  You hear it from your brothers and sisters as well, you should be able to do the family errands, like seeing to land titles, talking to the bank, fixing legal documents for the family, buying stuff family in another country is asking for, because you are JUST at home.

In the PH, they always say "E nasa bahay ka lang naman.  Ikaw na lumakad nyan."

What's with the JUST in the dialogue anyway???

Well, here's some news for all families with home workers.  Like you in your far away office, your home worker family member has also committed to perform a specific service for another party -- and get paid for it.   And that commitment has to be honored.  And get over this fact: that this work occupies time.  So if you need coffee or juice at home, you can buy some on your way home from your far-away office.  If you need some documents fixed, clear with your home worker family first if their schedules allow it.  You are not the only one who has deadlines and set times to do tasks.

Nope, nothing happened today that I sound angry.  But when I do remember this Just just Lang lang demeaning dialogue, I see red.

Family matters are important.  That is why we chose to work at home.  All we are asking for is to be treated with respect.  Ask for schedules if we can squeeze tasks in.  Bear with us for a bit if there are undone things because there is a deadline to be chased.  We will still do that, I guarantee you.  Whether we work in a far-away office or at home, we are family after all, not slaves.


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Emo-ing on the Pricing System of Writing Online

I know my future contractors will come across this article and may take it as a point against me, but I plead for everybody to hear me out first.

Writing articles or books is a difficult task.  It takes effort and brain power, especially if you're writing something that is very structured and formal.

So I am wondering why writers are willing to exert so much effort in exchange for 3 dollars, 2 dollars,1 dollar.  And they're supposed to be super grateful when they do $5 each for an article.

Call me a slow writer if you will, but here is a typical set of tasks for me to accomplish a 500-word article:

• Reading around the topic EVEN IF it is one of my expertise topics.  Thinking.
• Writing a draft.  Thinking.
• Looking for official documents if possible, if not, a verifiable 3rd party  source.  For internet marketing articles, I look for information through about 2-5 books in my collection.  And these books are the newest in the industry and cost money too.  Thinking.
• Cross checking information again.  Thinking.
• We-write. Thinking.
• More changes.  Thinking.
• Final look.  Oh, I don't want to think at this point anymore. :-)

If you were the one to do these steps, you would not think all that time and effort is worth $5, no?  Moreso, $3, $2, $1.  The electricity you used to use the computer for this wouldn't even be covered with that amount.

The pricing system for online writing is a tragedy.

$10 for a more personal piece with less research is okay. But $5 for a fully-researched, well-structured article does not cover it, folks. Sorry...

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On Paid Blog Posts

My 2 cents on sponsored blog posts.

Some people, online workers included, are wary of paid blog posts.  They think that all blog posts are somehow dishonest.

For someone like me who
1) Blogs because I want to write
2) Blogs because I'm enthusiastic about the blog topic, and
3) Has been blogging for years without compensation of any form - just now,

I have no issues with getting paid for posts.

I have my own opinions.  If I blog about a product, I will do so because it's what I really think about the product. 

Plus, if I do write anecdotes about it, those are real stories.


If I have issues about the product to be written about, then I can decline the request.  Simple as that. 

And truth to be told, I do not see the need to have a Full Disclosure Policy about paid posts because EVERYTHING I WILL EVER WRITE ABOUT IS TRUE.  If it's not true, or a tad dishonest, I won't write. If I get paid for liking something and being honest about it, I have no issues about that either.

So I don't really understand why some online workers are whining and whining about paid blogging but doing it anyway. 

Bottomline: If you have the need to whine about doing something.  Just don't do it and zip it.



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