While there really are online jobs out there, there seems to be more confusion involving them and outright lies to be had than real and substantial information. Admittedly, there seems to be more in the way of outright scams than real work when you take a look at listings, however there are ways to tell what is real from what is a scam.

Below are quick points to look out for:

• Promises of huge earnings: Let’s face it no job is going to be giving you any kind of huge sum if you don’t have experience.
• The Words ‘Data-Entry’: Data entry is real work, BUT it is something you need to  train for.  Most of the ‘data entry’ jobs online are surveys which may or may not pay out.

To find legit work online jobs, you do need a definable set of skills.  Considering the largest growing portion of online jobs is blogging, writing is a must.  While you may be able to find jobs for coding or art, typically you need more experience than the ability to code.

No matter what you would like to look into, you need a way to back up any claims.  Anyone can claim to write or code, but claiming something won’t get you jobs.  Create a portfolio or a blog (there are tons of free areas to get set up, WordPress and Blogger being two of the best) and get to work showing your skills.

Any website you create doesn’t have to be insanely popular to get jobs from, it’s just to show that you really can do what you say you can.  It should have at minimum 10 or so posts or examples (fairly arbitrary number, but you need a good amount up to show what you can do).

So what can you expect?

• Rejection.  You will be rejected and ignored more often than you get a declined offer.  It may or may not be anything against you, often you just won’t know.  The important thing is to keep trying.
• Low pay.  You more than likely aren’t going to get much, especially if you are just starting out.  If you are brand new at writing online (and the same can be said about other areas of online work) getting more to add to your resume may be able to help more with early gigs, so it may be worth taking lower paid jobs for a while.
• A lot of work.  You will work, a lot.  Often the hours invested at first may not seem to be worth it, and often you may not want to work on a certain day.  Yet, you are expected to so if you are serious about working online you have to work even if you ‘aren’t feeling up to it’.  It will get better, and those long hours will be worth more in the end, and as you keep it up, it does become a lot easier.
• Topics you may not be interested in.  Most of the time you don’t get to pick and choose what you are writing about.  At times you may find a topic boring, or downright dreadful (admittedly some of us do get lucky).

It’s not a job field for everyone, and you really need a lot of time to invest and dedication to the work.  When you are looking for a source of income online, remember the adage: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

The US government portal meant to give United States citizen’s information about the government and the ways to go about getting things from passports to information from the many government entities has recently been given a face-lift.

On July 2, the site rolled out several improvements: A new search tool; navigation; a mobile apps store; and public engagement platforms on government challenges, public dialogs and performance metrics. The revamped website also features a scrolling graphic at the top of the home page that highlights the most requested government services and information.

(Source: Fierce Government)

Here’s the website (front page):

What did it look like before?

Considering the sheer amount of information that needs to be packed into the website, it still manages a very clean interface.  Many of the extra little elements  find ways to display a lot of information into the small space, namely with the spiffy navigation menu towards the top.

Now, on to the design tips.

More than likely you don’t have as much information on your own website that the US government does (which is why I’m using their page as an example).They have monumental amount with their many agencies, warnings, updates, and other data they have and post up. Notice, it’s not all on the front page.

You can take to heart a few things that USA.gov website can show the average website owner.

• Navigation should be logical, and easy to use: When someone is looking for navigation they tend to look towards the top of a website, or to the right or left of the content.  It should be clearly labeled and easy to use.
• Keep information on your front page clear, concise, and minimal.  The front page of your website  can use teasers or other information to draw the user further into your website to the content (as opposed to having it all on the front).
• USA.gov is meant to be used by all ages, by the public at large.  Many of those same people aren’t entirely computer savvy, so when you design or consider a re-design of your website having that clear and concise content and navigation can help.

Another piece to take away? Re-designs can do wonders, but should be used sparingly.

This website (paradox9) has been re-designed countless times.  All using completely different templates, and without much overall thought or consideration to elements or anything else.

Do not do that.

For those in the same habit:

• While a re-design can be just the thing many websites need to start drawing in more people, if you re-design at every chance it will do more harm than good.  Instead, think about and carefully plan the changes.  Design (or pay someone to design) your website logically and with careful attention to the placement of important pieces and the plan you have made.
• Create (or install) your template and do not put it live immediately.  Test it out for a while and make note of anything that needs to be changed.

Settling on a great design may mean paying someone.

While I did the redesign myself, I also have enough coding background to do that.  If you don’t know any code, and php and html give you night sweats-look into designers to do it for you.  There are many out there to choose from.

There are a lot of times that you may need or want to have a repeating pattern for a project.  The easiest way to do this without losing your mind is to use a built in tool called ‘Define Pattern’ (in both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements).  Below is a simple tutorial on how to use the tool, with a bunch of images to help walk you through it. While the example used below is very much on the simple side, you can do this same method on more complicated patterns as well.

First, lets say we want a dot pattern.  It would take forever to individually place each and every single circle perfectly, so we will make life a bit easier and use the pattern tool.

Click any of the images below to make them larger.

Find or make the image that is going to be repeated.

Here I’ve opened a blank file to create the pattern’s image.

The circle that is going to be repeated.  It’s against a transparent background.

Go to Edit : Define pattern.

You will get a pop up that asks you to name your image.  This one is rather uninspiring named Dots.

Open a new file if you need to.

Here is the new file.  Select the paint can tool, and look towards the top where it gives you the option of filling in the image with either a solid color (Foreground) or a Pattern.  Click on the dropdown option for pattern.

A box will open, and simply find your new pattern.

Use the paint can tool by clicking on the area you want filled.

Tada! You now have a new pattern.

Working online with a primary focus on blogging, more specifically, for the last few years has taught me a bit about the business end of it.  Considering I’m also a freelancer, finding and securing those jobs that help me pay all my bills is obviously an important factor.

I can wholly admit, I never intended to be a blogger, let alone a freelancer.  It had never occurred to me that I could even make money online, especially a livable income.  I did enjoy writing even though most of my earlier bits were considerably shorter than my present standard of about 300 words (or more).  While I did enjoy it, I wasn’t in need of a job until some of life’s little things came my way at once and I had mounting bills and other financial problems that needed to be taken care of.  At the time, I did turn to the internet and found a few editing and writing gigs that I had thought would be only temporary.

Of course that was also about 4 years ago, and I’m still working in writing.  I wound up falling in love with the hours, and the ability to work wherever I wanted, with no real ‘set-times’.  Getting started is harder now it seems that it was when I started, but once you get the ball rolling jobs will come easier.

Setting up your own website for writing, and potentially impressing a prospective client isn’t easy and you will need to work on a few basics before getting into the full swing of things.  Once you do however, all that work will be more than worth it.

Read:

Read other blogs in your intended niche.  While you do not want to copy them at all, it can help to see what voices are already out there are see what you can add to the discussion.  If you have an inspiring thought that you think should be said, write down the general idea for the next step.

Write:

Consider first your topics and intended audience, and think up a few entries to get you started.  Write out at least 10 or so full posts before your launch, and write and polish them until they are the best they can be.  While you don’t have to use them all immediately, it really helps to have that cushion in case you won’t be able to post on a few days or so.

Design:

Having a special design for your blog can help create a more memorable feel for it.  While it doesn’t have to be too fancy, it does help.  Make sure it is what you are looking for as switching constantly typically can make you look unprofessional and chaotic.  Your design can set the tone for the rest of your website, so think long and hard about it.  It should fit nicely into the theme of your website, and while it doesn’t need to be overblown or outrageous, a nicely designed website can really help out and work wonders.  At times, the perfect design will be unique and mesh well to the point of not really being noticed.

Research:

A fair portion of the typical blogger’s time is spent on research.  From chasing stories to looking up relevant links to add to those stories.  It’s not the easiest thing for a good portion of the time, but the more consistent research you put into your writing, the more knowledgeable you will be.  Being knowledgeable is a good chuck of where your readership will grow from.

Learn:

It’s the same with anything that can payoff, it really is a continuous learning process.  If someone offers you advice, it may be wise to take it under consideration.  Be it through contacts, or comments- constructive criticism will help you grow not only as a writer, but as a blogger as well.

Keywords are important sure, but a lot of times they are avoided or just glossed over due to confusion or being pressed for time.  Having automatic tools is helpful, but actually finding some good ones with the thousands available is a imposing job.  Below you will find 5 automatic keyword tools that are easily available and free (because if you are anything like me, you can really get behind the whole ‘free’ thing).

Keywords can be useful little things, by helping out your search results or even just looking for an idea for a blog post.  At times, just looking at a list of related terms can help out immensely.

Wordpot

Wordpot has some interesting extras, while just like all of the others on this list it will give you keywords, it will also give you the exact amount a word was searched on the day you search spanning different search engines).  It also gives you related terms to help, associated words, definitions, and synonyms.

They have some subscription based services, and free account creation.  They are fairly new in the market and seem to be adding more services soon.  They are more advertising driven, with an intent of helping those who are looking into search engine marketing keyword tools.

Visit Website: Wordpot

Wordstream

Wordstream has some really useful free extras aside from the generated keywords.  A fairly nice service is their grouped keywords tool, which allows you to paste your top terms and will give you related broad terms, that narrow down further.   They also have some other informative and free tools available to the public (and you don’t have to sign up).  One of the more interesting tools is their Negative Keyword tool which advices you on which terms to avoid.

Altogether they seem to have a fairly good and robust suite of tools for the public’s use.

Visit Website: Wordstream

Wordtracker

Wordtracker will give you 100 free keywords, and some articles to help you boost your knowledge.  If you aren’t looking for much more than that it may suit your needs.  If you however want anything more, you will need to shell out a bit.

This tool would be best for someone just looking for words alone without any bells or whistles (keep in mind that this article is focusing on the free).

Visit Website: Wordtracker

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

If you have heard the term ‘Keyword’ you have almost assuredly heard of Google’s tool above.  They offer a ton of choices aimed at those looking for advertising options.  However when it comes to it’s keyword tool for other uses, it can be just as useful.  Being the most popular search engine around (and one of the most powerful companies) Google knows a few things about searching habits.

Visit Website: Google AdWords Keyword Tool

Google Search-Based Keyword Tool

Of course this tool can give you keywords and ideas based on them, but it can also tell you how robust your usage of those keywords are on your website.  It’s of course easy to use, and the results are based on actual searches for both what you enter and the related keywords.

Visit Website: Google Search-Based Keyword Tool

Choosing the way you display your art and photography can be as important as your work itself.  Finding a simple and stunning choice with so many options out there can be difficult and time consuming.   Below are 12 stunning options that are as simple as they are elegant.

GalleryView

Demo/Download

GalleryView is a very simple but wonderful option.  If you are looking for something lightening fast and simple, it could suit your needs perfectly.  The overlay title and description is a wonderful part of the GalleryView script (plus, it really looks amazing with the simplicity). It definately success in it’s mission to provide jQuery users with a flexible, attractive content gallery that is both easy to implement and a snap to customize.

Supersized: Fullscreen background/ sideshow jQuery plugin

Demo/Download

Supersized really lives up to it’s name.  It’s a fullscreen gallery that is great for high definition photos, and anything with a lot of color would really pop out.

* Resizes images to fill browser while maintaining image dimension ratio
* Cycles Images/backgrounds via slideshow with transitions and preloading
* Navigation controls allow for pause/play and forward/back

Moving Boxes – jQuery Image Gallery

Demo/Download

MovingBoxes is  a very fun little gallery.  It’s incredibly simple to use, and the look is fantastic. The script uses there are buttons to change panels and the panels zoom in and out.

PiroBox

Demo/Download
Here are just some of the features:

* The script now weights only 12.5KB, (9KB Minified)
* There is a choice between five different styles
* Slideshow option More…
* Multiple image set option More…
* PngFix for Internet Explorer 6
* Keyboard navigation: Right arrow [next], Left arrow [prev], ESC [close]
* Broken Link Check
* Automatic repositioning of the image in the browser window
* Browser compatibility = FireFox 2+, Opera9.5+, Chrome, Safari (Mac/Windows), IE 6+

You can even check out some of the fantastic themes that the plugin uses.

PiroBox is similar to lightbox (and the many other versions) and is great for a simple and effective option.

Image Rotator with Preview

Demo/Download

You can use the Image Rotator for images, blog posts, and a few other things as well. It’s a great way to display portfolio pieces, eCommerce product images, or even as an image gallery. With both a simple and effective design, it’s also easy to implement and customize.

Spacegallery – jQuery plugin

Demo/Download

SpaceRotator has a fun and elegant animation when switching views.

AD Gallery

Demo/Download

AD Gallery is another simple, but visually pleasing option.

Zoomer Gallery

Demo/Download

Zoomer Gallery is really fun and it would be a great choice for someone that has a lot of images to display (much like PiroGallery) it adds in a simple ‘zoom’ effect, and could easily be customized to fit other needs as well. It has flash-like effects but is written in javascript.

ImageFlow

Demo/Download

ImageFlow is a very graceful and elegant gallery/ slider.  It has a gorgeous reflection and while it’s simple visually- it is still very user friendly and beautiful. It has quite a few features for such a considerably small plugin.

jQuery jsGallscroll Plugin

Demo/Download

Another simple and effective option. jsGallscroll takes list of images and creates a smooth scrolling photo gallery scrolling vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. The plugin will also create pagination to allow you to flow through your photos.

Galleriffic

Demo/Download

Gallerific allows you to have a full featured and easy to navigate (and set up) gallery. It comes with a ton of options including pagination, graceful degradation if a user doesn’t use javascript, and a ton of others including many different user-options as well. If you want something that has more features and can allow you to customize more than Gallerific can definitely be for you.

Dynamic Image Gallery and Slideshow

Demo/Download
The Dynamic Image Gallery and Slideshow is incredibly lightweight, at only 3kb. It’s elegant in addition, and it’s a user-friendly and easy choice for someone who may want the simplicity without too many other things cluttering things up. The developer has released a new version however if you want a few more options.

Okay, honestly it’s a crummy title but a really awesome widget.  The Paradox9.com Two-Line T Shirt Maker (look at the sidebar, or even grab it from here: Two Line T Shirt Widget)is the easiest way known* by me to make your very own custom t shirt (there may be more coming up, aside from t shirts, at least).  So, how exactly can one use this marvelous little widget?  Follow the steps below to make your very own custom t shirt.

1: Upload your image somewhere.

2: Copy the URL to the image, and paste it into the URL box.

3: Enter your text.

4:Click Grab it!

5: View/ Edit/Buy

Obviously, the image is crappy for the example.  It’s one of the article images from this very website.

Misc Information: Enter your Zazzle associate ID to earn a commission (15% I believe) of each sale you make through the widget.  If you don’t have one, get one for free by just signing up at zazzle.com.  If you don’t want one, leave the option blank.

Don’t find random images that you don’t have the right to use.  That is just crummy, and they won’t print it anyway.

*Is it the easiest?  I have no clue.

There is a school of thought that any traffic is ‘good traffic’, unfortunately it simply isn’t true.  There is both good traffic and unproductive traffic, and the SEO of your website will decide on which one you will ultimately receive.  If you are checking your search statistics and are finding that many are getting to your website after searching for unrelated terms to your business, you are suffering from not-so-great SEO.

Before you pull your hair out trying to figure out how to fix it, there are some simpler things you can do to help.  Some of those options are a bit more time intensive, but they are workable and will help you improve your relevant search rankings.  Before you continue, make sure to write out a lists of terms that you are looking to rank better for.

Start Now: This is an under-utilized but good choice.  If you have a lot of content and a lot of visits that you don’t want to lose start writing posts now geared towards correct SEO.  Use keywords properly and often, the list you made can also serve to give you some post ideas.

Rewrite: If you don’t have too much in the way of content already on your blog, you can seriously consider just rewriting your present content with the keywords you listed in mind.

Start Over: Consider starting over only if you feel that your website is truly hopeless.  Generally speaking, this should be only used if there are absolutely no other options,  this option used far more often than it really needs to be.

Constantly updated content is the key to better rankings and more popularity with the search engines. By incorporating your main keywords into your posts, the search engines will see them and you will rank better.

While there are as many different ways to accomplishing a vintage look using Photoshop, I like this method due to being able to control the look fully, by using layers and the brush tool.  This is an incredibly quick and easy tutorial, it uses a few things that have been talked about here as well (linked for ease).

Here are the three images used (right click, save):

1.) Load your images in Photoshop

I’m using two different paper images.  While, you can just as easily use one- I really like the ‘clean’ look of the one to the right, plus the more destroyed look is great as well for a bit more dimension to the finished image.

2.) Define your brushes(to see a full tutorial on how to do this, click here:Creating a Pattern in Photoshop while it is the pattern tutorial, it’s also applicable for brushes).

Here’s the ‘define brush’ tool (it’s location: Edit > Define Brush ).  While you could easily only pick and choose an area that you prefer, this is shown using the whole image.  Repeat this with the other image as well.

3.) Put each new brush on it’s own layer.

Only one layer is started right now. Simply make the brush larger to fit the image, and click (the brush will look faded).

A darker brown color suits the vintage look best.

4.) Toy with your layers until you have it just how you like it (similar to the zombie doll tutorial).

Note in the image above the two different layers and flipped image. 

Each brush is in it’s own layer so it is easier to toy with the overall look, and the image is flipped because I’m lazy and don’t really feel like playing with the brush options (at least I’m honest).

Let’s face it, some dolls are scary.  The above image both proves it, and scares the bejeesus out of me, and I’m the one who set that sucker forth into the world (and for that, I am sorry).

Let’s say you have an image of a doll that for whatever reason you want to make much, much scarier( no judging).

First, grab these two images (download by right click and save as).

1: Doll

2: Cracked Earth 1

3: Cracked Wall

This is an incredibly easy effect to get, and it’s definitely not limited to dolls, so feel free to experiment even with the layers to get the effect you would like.

Here is the original image. Truthfully, it’s already fairly creepy.

Now, open up the other two images.  The lighter one is on Multiply for the image above, but toy with it until you get it how you like it.

Now put the darker cracked image on top. Below it’s on color burn due to again personal preference.

Here’s a larger image of the layer bin.