Choosing an internet business is difficult. This site has evolved several times – partly because I’ve lost interest in the ideas I’ve had and partly because of the “bright, shiny object” syndrome. On the internet, bright new ideas and products are plentiful and developed so fast it’s almost a blur. What seems like a good idea one day, is old news the next.

So where is the best place to spend your time?

Some say it’s in a place that you already enjoy. Some say you can learn to enjoy wherever you are. Some say, it’s a business, it doesn’t matter if you enjoy it or not.

Chris Garrett has a course called “Make More Progress“. What I took away from this course is that it’s not what you do, but how you do it. It’s progress that peaks your interest and spurs you on – even more than enjoyment in something. Some progress, any progress – because without it, enjoyment wanes.

One of Chris’s suggestions, the “minimum viable product”, was advice I had never heard before – which was not only refreshing, but also made perfect progress-making sense. Can’t tell you more because it’s not mine to tell.

Spend time on making things happen.

I think the trick is to fill your business full of it’s own bright, shiny objects so you don’t have to go looking elsewhere. Which is what I’m going to do – just as soon as I reinvent this site again!

Make it work! (as Tim Gunn would say)

Artwork & photo - Jessica Erin Higgins

My friend Cindy Bidar wrote a great post called Are You Afraid of Commitment? I swear—sometimes I think she writes these things to send me a subliminal message or something. Well, not so subliminal I guess. More like a big bonk on the head like they do in the V8 commercials to people who don’t eat their vegetables.

Cindy writes about making the commitment to be successful at your own business. About changing your mindset from treating it like a hobby to treating it like a business.

For me it’s much more comfortable to treat it as a hobby. It’s fun, it’s freedom, it’s doing what you want to do instead of what an employer needs done, it’s meeting great new people through social media and blogs. It’s a lot of things. Like a sparkly orange and pink aura swirling around you.

But Cindy is right – if we want to make money, we need to add an element of business to the mix. And it needs a lot of work to make money happen. So what is it that makes that so tough?

Here’s my theory. When you are a one-woman or one-man business, you are the business. It is like selling yourself. And that’s uncomfortable. Like a slightly less colourful and wrinkly grey aura spiralling around you. And any artist can tell you that if you mix too many colours, it gets muddy. No one wants a muddy aura.

So maybe the answer is to separate yourself from the business side of things. You can be the writer, the artist, the virtual assistant, whatever—but the “business” is another entity separate from yourself. A “thing” that you create and then commit to feeding and caring for. A thing that has its own swirling aura—preferably getting greener and greener.

Now if I can figure out how to do that, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, what tips do you have for getting into that business mindset?

Photo by Toms Baugis

A sticky site compels readers to return often and stick around longer because the content is just what they wanted to read. But that only happens if it is also easy to read.

Readability is a term used to describe the ease of reading. The “ease” part is relative though because it depends on your target readers. Writing at a level that is above or below your readers’ will just hasten their exit, boost your bounce rate and unstick your site.

What writing level should you aim for?

If you write for an academic audience, you will want to write in a high-brow kind of way that is virtually unreadable to the rest of us (and I say that in the nicest possible way). But that is the level of reading ease that will satisfy the academic crowd. The rest of us though will require a slightly easier read.

The bigger your audience is (or you want it to be), the more you need to write to the intermediate readers. If you write about safety, health, or legal issues, you should write to an even more basic level because it is important that everyone has equal access to this type of information.

What may surprise you is what level is considered intermediate reading. International surveys use levels 1 to 5 and do not give grade-level equivalents because that wouldn’t represent the actual skills of adults. However, others have estimated grade levels and say that intermediate works out to about grade 8. The basic level is at about grade 4 or 5. I’m not sure what level the bunny reads at, but the surveys show that over 80% of the human populations of countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia fall in the intermediate level or lower.

What is your writing level?

So how do you know what level you are writing at? There are several readability indexes that will score a piece of writing. Rather than go into the different indexes, I will point you to a few options I have found that will do the calculations for you. The first two are online sites that present you with scores for the different indexes and then give you a grade average.

Note that while you’re using these tools, you can point to a specific web page and have that evaluated, but it looks at the whole page not just the text. I would advise pasting your text directly in to get a more accurate result. It is important to note that these formulas are not totally 100%, but they give a good estimate.

In the screenshots below, you will see the results for the text above.

1. Read Able

2. Added Bytes

3. Microsoft Word: If you have “Show readability statistics” turned on under the “Spelling & Grammar” options in the Tools menu, you will see the scores at the end of a spell check.

What to do now?

These tools measure such things as the number and length of sentences, words, syllables, etc. Test yourself every once in a while to keep on track. If your readers are at the intermediate level and the tests show you are writing above that level, try simplifying. Use shorter sentences and more familiar, less complex words.

But remember that the indexes don’t measure good writing or good content. Readability is only important if you write something people want to read. A sticky site is a well read site.

Have you checked the readability of your posts or articles? Were there any surprises?

Sources:

• The Principles of Readability, by William H. DuBay (pdf document)
• Building on our Competencies: Canadian Results of the International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey (pdf document)
• National Assessment of Adult Literacy (United States)
• Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, Summary Results, Australia, 2006

Photo by Luca Conti

My bookmarks are out of control. There are so many good websites and blogs out there–and I bookmark them all. One of my favourite activities is to follow links and see where I end up. Happily bookmarking as I go. The only problem now is that it’s easier to find something in a search engine than it is in my bookmarks.

I considered starting over, but then it dawned on me that I should check out something that I’ve been ignoring–the personal homepage. Also known as the start page, personal portal, personal page, personal start page, personal web portal, or personal news aggregator. There are many names for it, but I’ll stick with personal homepage.

These are the customizable pages that look like newspapers and that you set up with such things as the weather in your area, local news, stock reports, traffic reports, widgets, gadgets, and whatever other feeds that strike your fancy.

RSS or Atom Feeds

There is so much more to feeds than I had imagined. Besides blogs, you can get feeds from many forums, websites, alerts, readers, email, bookmarking sites, news sites, press release searches, blog search engines, article sites (by subject or author)–and I’m sure many other sources I haven’t found yet.

Multiple Homepage Tabs

Much to my delight I also learned that the personal homepage is not restricted to just one page. You can set up multiple tabs. This is so cool. Set up a tab for each area you need to keep track of and fill them with relevant feeds. Then set up each one with a different design theme so they have their own unique identity.

Homepage Options

Some of the options for a personal homepage are iGoogle, My Yahoo, My MSN, Pageflakes, My AOL, Netvibes, and My Zooloo. I tried the first four of these and was happy with them all. They all offer basically the same capabilities. Originally, I decided to stick with iGoogle because I use several other Google applications. But then I tried Pageflakes and was quite struck with it. So I will use them both for a while and then decide.

Continually coming up with new things to write about can be a challenge. Not to mention keeping up to date with your own particular field and niche. But bury yourself in information and it only gets worse. It’s important to choose some main sources that are relevant and that you feel comfortable with and then follow those closely. When you need something that’s not covered there then surf away.

Your personal home/start/portal/aggregator page awaits and it’s hungry. Feed it! And then feed your mind.

What other feeds can you find to add to homepages?

Update [June 8, 2010] Pageflakes has been having some significant downtime problems – days at a time in some cases. I’m not sure how long Netvibes has been around, but I have just discovered it and am giving it a try. It seems to be another great alternative. Deb

Google Search Options

Google has just introduced new search options that make research that much easier. Ok, I lied. They rolled it out a couple of months ago. I’m a little slow and just noticed that Show Options link. Out of curiousity, I clicked on it and found some things that would have been awfully handy over the last two months had I known they were there.

It’s like when you buy a winning lottery ticket and don’t know it’s a winner because you put off checking the numbers for two months. Two months of being poor when you could have been rich and quit your job and moved to the south of Spain and lived on a villa close to a winery. I hate it when that happens.

But these Google search options are almost as good. You can choose different criteria for your searches. Limit the search to videos, forums or reviews. Pick a time range. Show more text or images. Play with the timeline. Mix and match!

Google Wonder Wheel

Then check out the Wonder Wheel. This shows related searches in spokes around your original search. As you click on a spoke, it expands and gives even more options. The new search results are shown to the right of the wheel.

I am just tickled with all this. Like a little kid with a new toy. What a help this will be with research for writing or finding ideas. Have I said, thank you Google, lately? Have you seen more search goodies somewhere that I have probably missed?

Check out more on the new search options at The Official Google Blog – More Search Options and other updates from our Searchology event.

Photo by Orin Zebest

Although not nearly as catastrophic as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the recent rash of suspensions in Twitterland brought back the shivers and memories of that story.

You know how you can read some books and later can’t even remember reading them? (Or is that just me…) The Handmaid’s Tale is not one of those books. I read it in the mid-80s and it’s one that I’ve never forgotten.

In that book, the government froze the bank accounts of all women and transferred control to their husbands or other male relatives. While this was a small part of what the whole story was about, it was electronic banking that allowed it to happen easily. As an ex-programmer, I know just how simple that might be with the right access.

And I assume it was just as easy to suspend a whole load of Twitter accounts on Sunday (July 5th). Apparently the intent was aimed at spammers, but many legitimate users were accidentally caught in the crossfire. Twitter is working hard to restore those legitimate accounts, but it is one of those things that makes you think about the processes you have in place. Like a computer crash reminds you that you haven’t backed up in quite a while.

Mari Smith, a very helpful and well known personality on the social media circuit, was one of the casualties. Thankfully Mari is back in the loop now and she has written a great article on the “Lessons Learned From Temporary Twitter Account Suspension.”

I will add one lesson. These accounts were just suspended – so they can be restored intact. In other circumstances your account could be completely deleted or corrupted in some way. It’s time to get our backup process up to speed. I did a search for “Twitter backup” and “social media backup” and found some applications that might help, but I haven’t used any of these so can’t offer suggestions. Oh, and don’t forget your site backup as well – especially if you are on a hosted server like Blogger or WordPress.com.

The moral of the story? Just like a good scout – Be Prepared.

I’d love to hear what you use to backup your social media accounts. Do you have any favourites or tricks you use?

Being Canadian is one of the great perks in life. Except for little annoyances like not having access to Hulu, being shut out of some article sites, and excluded from Google Checkout – there’s no place on earth I’d rather live. Thanks to some tweets at Twitter, I was led to this spunky little video called “Canadian, Please” by Julia Bentley & Andrew Gunadie and I thought all you Canadian wannabes would want to see it. Happy Canada Day on July 1st!

Photo by ikkoskinen

Is anyone else overwhelmed by the depth and breadth of the internet? As I mentioned in my last post, my business is veering onto another path for now–freelance writing. So I spend my time with article writing and building up a portfolio.

I checked out several article sites and, with some very helpful coaching from Angie Haggstrom of Freedom Freelance, chose two to start building up some experience. That’s not the overwhelming part. That was quite exciting actually.

Next came trying to find a sliver of space in all that content out there that hasn’t already been covered many times over. That’s the overwhelming part.

Everything I read advises choosing writing topics that match your interests and, of course, that’s where every writer wants to spend their time. But so far I haven’t found any cracks I can wedge myself into.

When I find myself bogged down in details, I eventually resurface, shake it all off and go back to the big picture. The internet as a whole is something like our big, wonderful planet. There are people everywhere writing about the same things, each in their own original way. And that’s ok. I’ve decided that there are enough readers to go around.

I take comfort in #7 of Squidoo’s Just the FAQ page–“Every person has his or her own unique view of the world and the web. There can easily be hundreds or thousands of different, successful lenses on the same topic without becoming redundant.”

We don’t have to find a place to fit in. We just have to be ourselves where we are.

So what about you? Do you worry about redundancy?

Photo by John D. (macrophile)

If you were to change your life, what would you do? If your life is about to change for you, how will you handle it?

Change is opportunity. Transition is a move from one thing to the next. To evolve is to be reinvented – and realize it is the right thing for you. I am reinventing myself right now!

As we boomers enter into the second half of life, many of us will leave jobs in favour of consulting, coaching, home businesses. Others will search for ways to spend their new found time. Still others will look for ways to share their knowledge or body of work.

If you are transitioning, consider building a presence on the internet. Your potential audience or client base is huge. And you have something we want. The work you’ve done, the things you’ve learned, the experiences you’ve had, the places you’ve been, the people you know – these all combine to give you a different perspective than everyone else on the planet. Unique wisdom.

This is valuable. And a presence on the internet is all about adding value and building relationships. These are key to a rewarding and/or profitable online experience. This is your chance to bloom!

On this website I focus on two of the best ways to build your presence – content sharing and social media. This first series of posts will attempt to explain what exactly that means. Then I will get more into specifics and hope to introduce you to some interesting and helpful people.

In the meantime, I would love to hear from you. What transitions are happening in your life?

Ivy Freelance is dedicated to the widespread benefits of content sharing and social media. And to Boomers in particular whose experience and vast wealth of knowledge is needed in this medium.

Healthy debate is encouraged! I look forward to your comments (policy) and emails (contact me) and hope you find value in these pages.