You know what I love about WordPress? I can change the future.

Right now, it’s Thursday. You’re reading this on Monday. (Well, maybe you’re lazy and not paying any attention to your feeds. Whatever, that’s cool. You get my point.) Right now, on Thursday, I’m in a wonderful mood. I’m casually sipping a glass of wine. I’m looking around my still fully furnished apartment and thinking, oh well. I’ll deal with the packing and moving later.

By the time you read this, it will already be later. I will be considering burning down my new apartment just to get the insurance money and move to Bali. I will subsequently be realizing that my insurance won’t have kicked in yet and burning my apartment down will bring me no financial benefit. I will likely be drinking wine anyway, but it won’t be quite so casual. Think nice thoughts for me. I think I’ll be needing them.

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 30, 2008 in Small Business Marketing - 25 Comments
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The home business marketing homeless dude is back to reiterate his lessons.

You may or may not know that I wrote an ebook. In that ebook, I told readers that if they ever had any questions about SEO, they could email me. Lots did, which was awesome. One in particular stands out, though, and I want to tell you about it.

Brandon (hi, Brandon!) came through StumbleUpon. He’d never heard of me before that. He dropped me a line through my contact form and we got to chatting.

He wanted to talk about his blog-to-be. He knows he shouldn’t use Blogger, but doesn’t know what to use instead. If he’s like most newbies to blogging, he’s read the posts where people spit venom at Blogger but don’t give an alternative because the writer thinks it’s obvious. I know I’ve been guilty of that.

So we chatted back and forth a little about Wordpress and the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org and all that totally overwhelming shit you have to think about before you start a blog. We get to what I think is a logical end to the exchange, and he fires back one more quick email. He wants to know about hosting.

Ahh, hosting.

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 26, 2008 in Small Business Marketing - 32 Comments
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Yesterday, I got a Google alert for my name. It came from a website I have heard of, but not really visited. The website has a subscriber base of about one quarter of what IttyBiz has, give or take, and doesn’t have a bad design. Definitely in my niche.

I dutifully followed the link and saw an article with my name on the byline and my photograph in the top left corner. Here’s what it said, with identifying details removed:

“This week’s [name of series] is a special contribution that [website] Founder [name of dude I’ve never heard of, hereinafter shortened to DINHO] lined up from Naomi Dunford. Naomi Dunford writes for IttyBiz, a blog for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and other work-from-home types. Come by for marketing tips, small business advice, and the occasional very bad joke. Naomi shares with use [use?] her top ways to get a new business off the ground.”

Um, WTF?

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 24, 2008 in Home Business Blogging - 39 Comments
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Regular IttyBiz readers will know that every now and again, when I do something really fucking stupid, I’ll write about it here and teach you a valuable business lesson at the same time. Because I’m cool like that.

If you were paying attention and actually read the monster home business resources post, you’ll have seen my warning about Skype. If you haven’t, I’ll recap here and say that Skype is WONDERFUL. It took me forever to suck it up and get it but it has totally changed the way I do business. I heart Skype. It has saved me a boatload of money and hassle and is generally awesome.

Except. (You know how they say, “there’s always a but”? Not true. Sometimes there’s an “except”.) If you’ve read any of the must read books/magazines/blogs about home business, you’ll know that the first order of business when you go out on your own is to treat your home office like you would treat a real office. Take it seriously, they tell you.

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 21, 2008 in Moral of the Story - 39 Comments
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This is the second post in a three-part guest post series about making money online and avoiding scams during your search. It’s by Joe and Steve of I’ve Tried That. They still maintain they are separate people. I still maintain they are not. Read part one here — How To Make Money Online and Avoid Scams.

If you’re new to this race—the “making money online” race—consider yourself lucky to have made IttyBiz one of your first pit stops. (Editor’s note: Remember the other day, when we were saying that in order to get a guest post on IttyBiz, you have to use the word “shyster”? Additional rule: Please suck up, but do so intelligently like Joe/Steve.) As you’re about to discover, there are LOTS of bogus money-making programs making false claims in an effort to take your money. One thing that’s in your favor, though, is that they all use the same or very similar tactics. Snake-oil salesmen are never original, it seems, and that’s a fact you can use to your advantage.

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 20, 2008 in Home Based Business - 37 Comments
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This is a guest post from Joe and Steve from I’ve Tried That. As far as I’m concerned, Joe and Steve are the same person. This will likely turn out to be false. Also, neither of them are the guy in this picture. Read, comment, go to their website, and I’ll be back when I’ve recovered from writing an ebook.

Even with a seemingly clear-as-ice title to lead you, half of you reading this are misunderstanding me. Well not you, of course, but some other reader less savvy than you. Because you’re an IttyBiz reader, you’re better prepared than most who come to the Internet looking to supplement their income.

You’ve already learned the lesson most people have yet to learn: those who go to Google and search for “make money online” are like country rubes stepping off the train in the big city and asking, “Can anyone tell me where I can give away a lot of money?”

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 18, 2008 in Home Based Business - 29 Comments
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Somebody I don’t know was recently given the unfortunate and God-given responsibility to publicly inform me that I am a shitty copywriter. (Sadly, this means I will have to quit my life’s work and become a perpetually temporary switchboard operator, but there you are. C’est la vie.)

The reason that this is coming up today is that I have spent a great deal of time over the last couple of days thinking about the blog post I will write to introduce my ebook. When you write a landing page and promote it — and therefore your product — through Pay Per Click advertising, you have the luxury of anonymity. When you write a blog about marketing and advertising and copywriting and you’re trying to sell your shit to the readers of that blog, well, the pressure’s on, isn’t it?

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 16, 2008 in Home Based Business - 36 Comments
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Hey everybody,

So it’s 1:30 Monday morning and Jamie and I are going to bed after successfully launching our ebook SEO School. If you would like to check it out, click here. If you don’t want to read all the sales copy you can just scroll down to the bottom.

Thanks all, more on this later when I am more lucid.

PS- If you do decide to purchase the ebook, when you get to the page that asks if you have a discount code, enter “MovingDay” (no quotes) to get $9 off. I’ll explain later.

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 16, 2008 in Home Based Business - 13 Comments
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If you’re like most home business owners or future home business owners, you’ve done your homework. You’ve probably been hanging around here for a while and you’ve probably read a lot of the posts and comments. Maybe you read Entrepreneur magazine. Maybe you have a Delicious profile full of resources and home business tips. You have researched and planned yourself to death.

Just to overwhelm you, I’d like to add one more piece of advice. This is probably the most valuable advice I could ever offer anyone in your spot.

First, some background. When I started offering the IttyBitty package, one of my first customers was Selene Bowlby from iDesign Studios. She’s does custom website design, and she’s pretty damn good at it. But in addition to being a highly cool web designer, she is also possibly the most prepared home business owner I have ever worked with. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so set to succeed.

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 12, 2008 in Home Based Business - 41 Comments
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First, some administrivia.

I got some email feedback after the 45 Home Business Resources post from people who were stoked about the Site Build It! thing but were spazzing about the price. I just got a ping about an hour ago from SBI saying they were doing a special until June 21st that let’s you get a second one for another hundred bucks. (Are they reading my email?)

I said to myself, “Self, you should tell your readers about this.” Then I responded, saying, “If they can’t afford one, they sure as shit can’t afford one plus an extra hundred bucks.” I commenced ignoring the email.

But then Jamie decided to buy a couple for himself and it occurred to him — because he is smarter than I am and FUCK OFF I’M TRYING TO GET AN EBOOK WRITTEN HERE!!! — that two people could split it. (I checked with SBI and this is totally legit. They’re actually recommending it themselves.)

By Naomi Dunford - Jun 11, 2008 in Small Business Marketing - 11 Comments
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