But when it rains it pours, and things went wrong, right, left, up and down.  June 1st to June 25th was seemingly one long blurry day of rain.  In the midst of it all, I suddenly found people who were local who had been friends since grade school, disappeared when I needed them most, after requesting my help days before and repeatedly pushing a known problem.   Yet my online friends stepped up, some knowing that my grandmother was only a big  drop in a bucket of a bad month, some simply knowing I was hurting.  And am still (there’s a lot unsaid).

Now perhaps you wonder what this has to do with online tools and how to use them.

Simple.

Years ago, people said you can not make real friends online.  Let me say social media has changed that.

Skype brought Kelly Maria Clark of KellyMariaClark.com and Vernon Harleston of TheHighRoad.com

Facebook and Twitter allowed Allison Smith Haley of Allicat.com, Bonnie Green of BonnieGreen.com, Kate Hollifield of CrazyQuiltAcademy.com and Elaine Ireland of ElaineIrelandPsychic.com  to chat, to email and send just this message *Hugs*.  Now if you are not a social media person the * indicates an action rather than saying something.

Text and cell phones kept me in touch with my boyfriend in New Mexico.

My real world broke apart.  My digital world exploded in love.  If you are not using social media then you do not know how many people who share your same heart (interests and personality and such) exist!

And as my world slowly started regaining some normalcy, I realized the #Blog30 had almost completely slipped by me.   25 days had.  So suddenly my head a bit above ground I started reading.

Create Something Buzzworthy by Melanie Kissell was the first that really struck me.  Somewhere in the middle of the month I started Rockstar Education to Website Basics and WordPress Site Creation and it has produced exactly zero sales.  So I am going to promote more, be louder about how much education you get in 3 months.  And now there is even coaching to go with it!

Then I stumbled across Suzie Cheel’s  Does Fear Stop You Growing? and I must say you feel pretty small when you are always afraid to ask for help and when you do people you trust disappear.  Yet unexpected people appeared and that made life better, and conquering fear is what I will have to do promote myself more.

Finally there was Michelle Shaeffer with Don’t Quit Weekend Inspiration by the time I read her blog…  I was in tears. (Sorry Michelle I just exploded in emotions on your comments)

It would have been easy to quit the blog challenge, to give my internet business, to lose faith, but that means giving up my dream.

I am a writer.

I am an author.

I have instructional guides that help beginners and are explained in detail without talking down, because YOU are worth it.  You are amazing. How do I know?  I was abused.  I have allowed people to tell me I am not worth it or worthy of good things.  And I know the garbage and dirt of life has denied the world of your beautiful light.

Thank you to all of you friends who touched my heart when your hands could not.

~ MJ Schrader

PS.  Get my WordPress coaching program.  It’s worth every cent.

Yes…

it is.

This is third in the Planning the Unexpected series.  Each day is a products, person or service I recommend. Please again note that attached links are affiliate links. This helps me make some money to pay for last minute travel and emergency things during my grandmother’s funeral. Today is Outsourcing and features Jim Fisher…

Outsourcing Grows Your Website

While some people like to rave about how they can do it all, others know that doing it all is not possible. There are things that you may not know. Other things that you are not good at, and things you just do not like to do. This is a benefit of outsourcing, you “hire outside resources” to do those things.

Who outsources?

You do. Now of course you are probably shocked, but yes you do. Have you changed your oil? Maybe you do not know how, maybe you do. But most people drive into a 15 minute oil change place and have our oil changed. They are quick, easy, efficient and have better tools than jacking up the car and laying on pavement changing the oil 3 inches from your own face.

Be Efficient

Similar to the oil changing, there are things you do not have the time, tools or skill set to do efficiently. Perhaps you are an excellent writer, but when it comes to setting up your website, you have no patience. If it’s WordPress, that’s my job You could have someone moderate your comments, monitor your email or do research.

An example

If you create products to sell online, then you must spend time on that. Many people with online businesses and websites spend an hour every day going through their emails! That is 7 hours a week. By outsourcing projects like this, you may spend only 30 minutes a week. This gives you 6.5 more hours to work on projects that sell and make money versus an activity that is mostly busy work.

Over a Year

Perhaps 6.5 hours is not enough time to create a new product. In a month by outsourcing this project you have saved 26 hours of your time. Over the course of a year, you could save over 300 hours of your time, which translates to 2 weeks. Would you like a 2 week vacation?

What about Jim Fisher?

Jim Fisher is someone I met through Pat O’Bryan. Jim has created a site called Outsourcing Control.  He is going to unseminar 8.  He has a lot of great information about other ways outsourcing can benefit you and where to find the best people.

~ MJ Schrader

PS Want to save 25% off my products?

In honor of Pat’s Unseminar 8, you can save 25% off any product this special page.  You have until July 17th!

During Check Out use Coupon Code: PatSpecial610

Things happen. That’s just the way life is. Family emergencies, home emergencies, emergency evacuations. Things happen unplanned and throw things into turmoil.   But how much depends on your planning.

Unfortunately you are reading this post because my grandmother died.  It sounds weird, but she had a stroke May 27th.  So I wrote posts to plan for leaving suddenly, including this one.  This one explains my departure and how the post will be maintained.

Blog Advantage

With blogs and website you do not have to have everything published right away. With WordPress and other blogs you can easily write several posts and leave them in draft mode.  They will not publish, but you can have the posts ready for an emergency. With the posts written and prepared it does not take long to make them work for you.

You can either follow a FIFO, using the first in first out, and keep writing to keep some in reserve/ draft mode for emergencies.  You could write some posts that you know will be timeless, so they can easily be used when the time is right.  The second was the method I chose.

When things change

Then when I got news, I was able to use the quick edit to change the dates to “replace me.”  When you click posts and edit, you can select quick edit underneath a post title to change the date and to scheduled.  Pick dates that follow your normal post schedule to maintain your presence. You can also write posts and schedule them as you write.

What you will see.

For the next few days you will see posts about various services and products people offer, because they can help your business.  Since these are friends, the posts were easy to write especially with worrying about both grandparents.  Also a last minute ticket costs twice as much as regular airfare, especially flying into a tourist town.  Please if you like the person or product I discuss, then please use the links provided and tell them I sent you.  I get affiliate income.

If you want to help me AND make money, join my Rockstar Affiliate Program. You earn 50 to 60% on my products and if you sell over 25 items your rate increases by 5%, 10% if you sell over 50!

~ MJ Schrader

PS.  Please mention this post on Twitter.

Unfortunately I was out of town so my series on backing up your WordPress site had a minor break. I did schedule some posts to appear but did not have time to write the posts that needed to follow the back up.

Why BackUp Your Blog?

As discussed in the previous posts, you want to back up your posts regularly. This protects you should anything happen to your blog. You also want to back it up when you make major changes as they may cause the system to crash. While a crash should not occur, things do unfortunately happen.

Are you using the Back Up Plugin?

After our discussion last week I hope you are using the automatic backup program. If not go back to WordPress Plugin for Gmail Backup post. With it, your blog will be automatically backed up as frequently as you like. You will need to visit your email account and download your backup file onto your computer. Note where it saves.

Finding phpMyAdmin

Ok, so you have your backup but now you need to restore it. Log into your cPanel. This is your back office assigned by your webhost. Look for a box labeled databases. In it you should see phpMyAdmin. Click it, and you will be taken to a strange looking place.

Time To Find Your DataBase

From the main menu, underneath My SQL or localhost, pick Databases. You will then see your database(s) depending on how many you have. Click the one you need to restore.

Importing Your Data

Across the top of the screen will be a row of tabs. You need to click the Import tab. The next screen will have a “Location of Text File” box and a Browse button. Click Browse and find your backup file. Make certain you have the SQL radio button checked and press Go. If you need more information visit Codex WordPress.

Time to check your Blog!

Your blog should be restored. You will probably need to make some adjustments on your WordPress blog to get it back to your previous settings.

Would you like an automatic backup?

Forgetting to backup WordPress is a common problem. Plus it is not like you plan for your blog of 2 years with hundreds of posts to suddenly become unstable. Then sometimes a server becomes unstable, so a backup to your server will not help. This is where the plugin WordPress Database Backup (WP DB Backup) will save you.

Why WordPress Database Backup?

Set it and forget it is a great reason to get it.  After you set it up, you can have it automatically back up your blog, after every post, hourly, daily or weekly. Then as added security rather than send to your server you can send it to your email account.

Why did you recommend Gmail?

You want to use an account that has plenty of storage.  It is also a free email service and you could set up an account just for your backup.  You can also filter the backups into a folder. You can save all, or some or just two of your latest back ups.

How do I set it up?

The simplest way is to go to Plugins on your WordPress Dashboard. Click “Add New” then type “WP DB Backup” in the search.  Austin Matazko is the creator of this plugin so you want to make certain that is the one you get. Click install then again in the pop up. You want to make certain it is activated.

How do I configure it?

Now visit tools and backup. In the first box with some options on things to save, which depend on your website needs. The next box allows you to save right now. This is a great thing to do when you first install it. But the last box is the most important. Here you can set a back up schedule. If you have many comments per day, you might want twice daily.  For 365 Online Tips, we post daily so we back up daily.  If you post once a week, you could have it save weekly.  Add your email address for backups then click schedule.

What happens now?

You now have the comfort of knowing you are automatically backed up. If you are planning on doing a lot of work or moving your blog then you would want to use the export and import, which is tomorrow’s post.   However for an emergency this is a great worry free solution.

ROCK ON!!!

~ MJ Schrader