Alright it’s time to check in. I have wanted to share some findings between now and my last post, but I have been too preoccupied playing catching up with school work and zip-tying my online shop together. I say zip-tie, because that is what it feels like at this point. I am feeling a little burnt at the moment, so I am going to protest by sharing my drama.
There is a couple things I want to talk about:
- everfluorescent.com
- Optimizing Google tools for small business
- Creative atrophy
- Judgement, fear, and failure
everfluorescent.com
Last you heard from me, I had taken on quite an undertaking of configuring my home network with a Juniper switch. It has been smooth sailing so far. (My development server has turned into a tiny production server and it must be saved at all costs.) 😂 Protect the tiny server! I have actually impressed myself that my switch is buzzing along, doing its thing.
An unexpected feeling has reared its head from this experience. I realize that I now sit cozily tucked behind multiple firewalls. Paired with multiple sources of traffic monitoring, I think this is boss mode. Look at me protecting and analyzing. I did not plan for this. 😂 I just wanted to play with CSS all day but here we are. 🤷♀️ Remember: do not get too cozy!
Upon getting my network recombobulated, I went straight back to my website checklist. On that list was creating unified location for managing social media posts. As you know, there are too many and it is a lot to deal with. That is why big companies hire social media managers and content creators. However, I do not really consider myself a content creator. When I think of content creators, (and please forgive me here if this is your profession) some images come to mind:
- Well endowed females selling a ‘lose weight fast’ or ‘skin care’ product comes to mind. It’s not realistic and we know it.
- Soccer mom gets organized with new travel mug that has pockets for essentials in its carrying case and all of her children wear clothing that have tracking devices sewn into the seams because she is karen 2.0.
I think you get the idea. 😂😂
Basically, the idea of ‘content creation’ causes me to do an internal eye roll. Dude, I am an artist, I am already a creator. But now there has to be two of me? I really groan at the idea of additionally having to market myself. I came to realize that I actually have a ton of raw content - pictures, videos, stories - they just need to be re-organized and published in a way that makes sense to the public.
Feeling overwhelmed, I started to look for free tools or tools with free tiers that could help me manage this situation. Without too much explaining, here is what I’ve landed on so far:
Custom Stack
- Buffer: Add up to 3 social media sites for free for scheduled content posting to rebuild brand awareness. I added Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to Buffer’s free tier.
- Custom spreadsheet with several columns of data including date to be published, platform, links for media, text, status, and others.
- A Google bot service that reads from my spreadsheet when called (manually, from terminal) The bot schedules the posts for me in Buffer, changes the status for each row when appropriate, which lets me know if it has been added to the cue or not. The Google bot cannot use a Google drive link to upload media links to Buffer. However, it can read them and put them somewhere else. The Google bot takes the media from my chosen Google drive folder, uploads the media to a Cloudflare R2 storage container, then loads them into Buffer from Cloudflare. Media files in Cloudflare are automatically deleted after 30 days, keeping it clean.
- Canva: great for making short videos with content I already have. I do not need to be the next Steven King, I just need to have some effective communication here, on a very small time budget. This fits the bill. Thank you, templates.
- Brevo: Promotional email management
Google Analytics Tall Tale
Now I am not some big fancy super analytics boss, but I do have tools. We can build amazing things with the right tools. Let me tell you my Google Analytics tall tale.
In a previous post, I shared the 404/redirect nightmare I was having. Years of trying to do online business left me with a ton of redirects and broken links. Broken links were found in an old shopify account that was connected to social medias, other places I rarely had used like X, pinterest, square, and other deeply nested what-have-yous. Customers were being sent to an empty room. I found that out, the hard way. Since then, I have cleaned up my act and spent a lot of time refining things where appropriate.
That involved:
- Shutting down my shopify fully
- Removing or updating links in various platforms
I have been trying to understand why I was getting so much traffic but almost no sales. This fix was only part of the problem, I learned later. Continuing on through time, I checked my Google analytics and ads daily. My money was still being spent, with no improvement in sales. However I did feel better that the 404s have almost ceased to exist. 😂🤷♀️ But this obviously needs further intervention. So what is the deal, Google? I had to allow some time to pass to get actual data now that the redirect and 404 nightmare was cleaned up. I let a week or so pass, then I summoned Claude to check Supermetrics while my free tier was still working. I learned ALOT.
Sure, pay for Google ads they say, increase your reach, blah blah blah. It is so much more than that. You can not just pay $5, $10, or $100 and get a sale. You must analyze clicks and traffic to optimize your money and ultimately, supposedly, your business’s success.
This is a new area for me. I am flying by the seat of my chair and clinging on for dear life, wondering how much of my own pocket will deplete before the beast becomes sustainable.
There is no promise, no guarantee, just a million miles of the internet. How do we clear the digital weeds?
Digital Weeds
As it turns out, SEO is not enough. You think you mastered that? Good job. Time for phase two: target practice. Upon drawing data for something like the 20th time in my free trial, Claude reported back to me that the majority of my money was being wasted on garbage clicks. Excuse me, Google? What are you doing, bro? Ahem Garbage clicks, sir? 🤣🤣🤣 You are going to just waste money like that? We all want to blame everyone but ourselves, it is human nature. When I learned that money was quite literally being wasted, and having the prior knowledge of customers being sent to 404’s, a thought occurred to me: “For the past few months, I have been paying for customers that are not interested, to go no where.”
People were clicking my ads after searching for things like “cat carrying hoodie” and other oddities.
This is where I learned the importance of negative keywords in Google searches. Searches that are not related to your product generally should not result in your product ad appearing. That is admittedly bad marketing. You can add negative keywords to help refine when your ads appear after a Google search, to help you reach the right audience.
I checked my Google ads spending before and after refining keywords with Supermetrics. Clicks are down but spending is still up, so I’m turning off AI Max since it is likely resulting in my brand appearing for other brand searches, cool, but expensive. I’m also turning off ‘Search Partners’ as well as that could be a source of unrelated expensive clicks. I have also crimped my budget extremely for the time being until I get a grasp on traffic and clicks.
Some may view this as a failure and waste of money, but what actually happened was a tremendous amount of learning the landscape. Throwing myself into a fire and learning is tremendously more beneficial than saving a bit of cash in the here and now. I bit that bullet for you, so any new aspiring web developer with a plan does not have to. If you already know your broad search terms and negative keywords ahead of time, then you are a step ahead. Retrospectively, I would try to gather all the data you can on your intended audience and have a chat with your favorite AI agent before deciding to spend money on ads. Just do not be surprised when it requires continued refinement! And please if you are not experienced use the Supermetrics free trial with your agent. It does a lot of heavy lifting! Do not make it more difficult than it has to be.
The Fun Updates
It is not all analytical doom and gloom, I had my significant other craft me a shiny new version of my logo for the hero area on my website. And I must say, it is freaking awesome.
I have also added some more images of my art in the gallery area for viewing. That is found at https://www.everfluorescent.com/gallery and consists of only my bigger fancier pieces at the moment.
I have also added some policy pages to comply with Google merchant centers requirements, which are now found at the bottom of the page. In addition, I have included a proper signup area for promotions. If you signup and verify your email, you get a unique code for $5 off. I have been wanting this feature added for some time now, and I have found that managing it through Brevo on the free tier for now works just fine. It was not hard to set up and I highly recommend giving that a whirl if you are in need of managing promotional email.
In addition, A tiny blog area in the about section has been added. Two existing stories from my old square site were refined and placed there. This is an area that I will be working on through time.
Social media links have been updated on the page, and set the repo to private. Sorry guys, I would love to keep sharing, but I am sure you understand.
Customer Confidence Concerns
- Data is stored in another location.
- Financials are all handled through Stripe, a reputable transaction handling partner.
- Google Places API to pulls in actual Google reviews, I’ve been doing this a while! Social media efforts will slowly bring brand awareness and direct customers to my site.
Unrelated Contemplations
Last night, I got absorbed into a new painting, nothing big or fancy, just wanted to get out of my head. I have been doing the “tech world” thing for nearly 4 years. I completed an apprenticeship, went back to school for second bachelors, and worked multiple IT jobs. Here I sit now again, unemployed, in front of a canvas and computer screen.
Years ago, I used to dye my hair brilliant colors, neon, galaxy, whatever striking color I was obsessed with at the time. Knowing about the conservative nature of corporate environments and harsh barriers to entry for a junior dev, I dyed my hair a “natural” color with a conservative hair style and maintained that image the last 4 years while I tried to be a “professional”. If I can say one real fact, it is that I had more money when I was out there being myself, with lime green rainbow hair.
I have refrained from doing certain things for years in case an opportunity arose. But considering the lack of opportunity despite my best efforts, I am about to not care again. I have also navigated a lot of other things during this time. I went into hiding, dark mode, quiet. I feel that “trying to be perfect so much as to never even get a speeding ticket” has gotten me no where. I stopped posting on social media so that certain people would stop digitally attacking me, to say the least. It has been years, and I am tired of it. Tired of being a ghost, tired of hiding, tired of being perfect, and not dying my hair fun colors for what? The interviews and job offers that do not exist? 🤣 This is insanity, and I want to express myself how I deem warranted. If you judge me based on my neon hair - I am not sorry I blinded you. Get some sunglasses. However, natural hair color is low maintenance, and was an optimal choice for turbulent times.
What do you think - should I be myself - or continue to seek and wait for opportunity? Tell me, what are the current thoughts of society for professional visual aesthetic?
