This Site Is Not A Charity
I will boldly say upfront that there is one reason WordPress Max exists and that is to make money! I am a Capitalist and don’t apologize one bit for it. WPM is setup to help others with their WordPress blogs and when it takes up a good bit of my time to help someone personally I expect fair compensation for my time. I do however understand that to make money I need to do my best to provide good content that is free for all to read, use and share. But when my site is being used by others to profit from then that pisses me off!
Two points I want to make here in my rant: Recently some clueless contacted me regarding some PLR WordPress templates he purchased (or got ripped off with junk). He asked if he sent them to me he would pay me to look them over and explain to him how to “put them together”. The fist files he sent were a bunch of junk HTML splash page templates. I replied that these were not WordPress themes. He insisted they were because they used CSS stylesheets. I then took the time to explain to him that CSS is used in more than WordPress, it was a long informative email that took me some time to compose. He then sent another batch and the link to the site he got ripped off from. The link had no refernece to WordPress or how to use these PLR files.
The second batch had two poorly coded WordPress themes that were nothing more than the default theme with a custom header. I wrote back again telling him how to upload and use these files, and again that these files were all just separate templates to use or resell. The funny thing is that in all the 6 or so email exchanges he replied within an hour but after the last one with all the answers… no reply. I contacted him a few days later regarding payment he went off on me saying I didn’t help him and was rude for asking compensation. I spent about two hours messing with this idiot and since he didn’t like the fact that I told him he paid for junk he didn’t want to pay me. Lesson learned: Get paid upfront or at least partially for any free lance work you do online. I don’t always ask for payment upfront because the time it takes is unknown for some of the special requests I get.
The next point is very bothersome and has required me to password protect one of the more popular pages on this site. Recently it came to my attention that another free lancer who is setting up WordPress blogs, rather poorly I might add, has been sending people to this site to learn how to finalize and use the WordPress blogs he is setting up for less than I charge. These sites have no SEO, permalinks or a ping list (among other critical missing configurations) and his people are coming to me asking for help! Hey I don’t mind the competition at all but I’ll be damned if I let him or anyone else use my site for his support system. I spent a lot of time writing the guides on WPM to help my clients and many others, and all the content is still available to all except for the one page that has all the critical information on one page.
So beware of the cost of anything if it is real cheap there is a reason. Be careful online, people will steal from you even if they don’t take your content they can take your time or use your content for their gain. There are lazy thieves everywhere even on the Internet.
If I have setup your blog for you and you want access to the now password protected WordPress Optimization Guide, click here to contact me for the password.
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Comments
Same story here about the “free service”…
A few months ago, a guy wrote me an email, told me he liked the look of my website and wanted me to design a blog header for him.
I told him I wasn’t a pro designer but could give it a shot and I would be paid later. I designed, he loved it, kept on praising me but kept on changing his mind about details. I didn’t mind though. Once, I apparently didn’t reply fast enough because he send me an email saying that he would take my header after all, byebye.
I told him I wasn’t offended but that he had wasted my time. That was rude and I hated the attitude.
He came back to me saying he hated my work and he sent me $2 by Paypal “for the value of my work”.
I refunded the money and said I was worth more.
I don’t bother with people’s requests anymore, sorry for the legitimate ones.
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Which version of WordPress is recommended – in particular for a Blog that will be designed to support a real estate agent business. We have a website that is slowly climbing towards page one of Google searches usingn our most popular real estate search terms for our area. We are currently on pages 2, 3 and 7 for the most popular three search terms. We believe the blog will help our business and hopefully bring visitors to our website.
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Irene the latest version is always the best to use for any blog. WordPress has different versions that are in chronological order but one is not really “different or better” than the other, the latest version will have improvements, changes or security fixes.
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Jeff,
I like a good rant now and then. It can be very frustrating when people mess you around and take advantage of your generosity. But luckily they aren’t in the majority, so keep up your good work!
Alan Thomas / Best Home Internet Business Ideas
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Good post. I keep meaning to contact you to help me transition to WordPress but it’s not the right time for me to do so.
Rest assured you will be paid and upfront too.
If it is worth doing well it is worth hiring somebody who knows how to do it.
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Jeff -
Sorry to hear that you ran into one of the ‘jerks.’ I too have learned the importance of upfront payments. It’s not the way I’d prefer to work, but there are enough prospective clients who are really just seeking ‘free consulting’ that it’s the only reasonable solution.
Having done business with you, I wanted to let the other readers here know that not only do you do great work, you’re incredibly prompt, accommodating, and helpful.
I’ve already recommended your services to a few people. (Only ones who pay, I promise!)
Rob Croll
Marlannah Group Internet Marketing
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Thanks Rob, I like to know what to charge upfront but I also get some outrageous requests that I don’t know are possible until I spend time trying to figure out. I hate to charge for something that isn’t possible yet don’t like to work for free!
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I recently completed a blog installation with WordPress and Go Daddy for a local client. Since she learned that she can change the themes, she wants more themes installed. It only takes few minutes, but in your opinion, what is a fair charge to upload a few themes?
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I hate people like that. They want to make their problem your problem, and they don’t appreciate it if you try to help them. Ignorance is bliss.
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I can see not wanting to support their customers for free, however it would seem to me that him sending potential customers your way is a good thing. Why not just keep the page up and include some marketing text? Anyway keep up the great blog.
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I agree some people cost more than they are worth in emails explaining simple facts of web design. I guess they could all lead to bigger projects though.
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I think it is good that you can state your objective without worrying about what people think.
Everyone starts blogs in hopes to make money someday.
Keep up the hard work.
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Drive-By comments will be deleted! Like "Thanks for sharing", "Nice post", or any other text that doesn't contribute to the discussion. If you ask a very specific question about your particular WordPress theme, it will probably be deleted. I can fix your WordPress site but for a price. If you ask a question like "Why don't my blog work right", it will be deleted. If you ask a question about your WordPress site without a leaving a link to it, it will be deleted. The point is to ask questions and or comment on the the actual content of the post, and to please use some common sense. All comments are moderated and will appear when approved. Thank you.