Getting paid as a freelancer working abroad via Upwork is not that easy. When I moved abroad a decade ago in 2013 my only option for receiving any payment was limited to keeping my former national bank account activated and receive payments in my country of origin. With my debit card I was able to …
Why PageSpeed is the single most important factor to improve right now for your website PageSpeed Equals Landing Page Experience. It is the only thing that distinguish your site from the other bidders at Google’s Auction. Why PageSpeed optimization is the single best thing you must do to distinguish yourself from the competition in 2022. …
Is it not very narrow minded to stick to online advertising only? I prefer to be / become an advertising agency that serves serious and sustainable businesses. Not the fast digital startups were 9/10 will not make it. So, keeping that broad view, I looked into print advertising. I read about it for years. Warran …
Let me be honoust with you. You should not Advertise on Ecosia in 2022, it is better to start today, but the title of this post ending on ’22 will last me longer, you know. In two month’s from now we are entering a new year, and if I would use 2021 in the title …
The past three days have been mindblowing. AdWorld is an online conference (duh) and for me it was the oppertunity to get submerged in a huge stream of presentations about Advertising that ran similtaniously at three diffrent stages. First of all kudo’s to the organisation, the sign up and planning of the sessions I wanted …
Is as simple as that. Not only does it help you to get better organic seearch results, because Google likes fast sites and even punishes slow sites, also real people will more likely stick around on your site when it is not as slow as waiting in the line in the supermarket standing behind an …
One of the most energetic house DJ’s around is te one and only Carl Cox. I’m sure your have your own fair share of music channels to listen to while grinding hours in your locked down home office situation, but if you have a moment, look up some of his sessions. His Yes, Oh Yes, …
Santa Cruz, Bolivia 05/11/2020 This is the page where I am supposed to sell you my copywriting services. Probably the most unnecessary page on my website. At this point you already know who I am. You do not care at all what I have done before, you just need someone to sell your stuff using …
Try Microsoft Bing Ads! In an era where Google Ads CPC prices are rising to astronomic proportions it becomes less interesting to advertise on Google Ads for certain markets. Before you start from scratch with Bing Ads you must know this. If you have a successful Google Ads campaign, you should try advertising Bing search …
On short term it might be interesting to use hot topics and actuality such as this years’ killer virus. But on the long run I think it is not interesting. Not for me. Proper keyword research is. Next year you already forgot about this year’s threat and another disease is on top of people’s mind. …
Keyword research is the reason I am not writing today about Corona virus Read More »
There we are. Two weeks ago all was nice and pleasant. Now we find ourselves hostage in our own house, only leaving the guarded compound twice a week to get groceries in the few limited hours in morning, before all roads get blocked. The protest against election fraud have paralyzed the country. But I am …
Dropping the hashtag #Expocruz2019 for business owners who are looking to do business in Bolivia. I am preparing an exclusive promo for an Google Ads Account Audit for Expositors at the trade convention that will take place from 20 – 29 September 2019 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. Perhaps you will receive my …
Dear Friend, Today I am an early riser. Normally I wake up with an alarm at six and must force myself to get up, but now I cannot sleep and I silently sneaked out of bed to make sure no-one wakes up in the house. My mind is boiling with ideas and things that I …
Bolivia? WOW. An often-heard response when I tell people where I live. It is called geo-arbitrage… One of the many benefits of creating a stream of micropayments large enough to live from, is that you can choose to live anywhere you want. Most would prefer any place with palm trees and where the cost of …
Now that came as a surprise! I assumed it was on a 18-month track. 14 months ago (To be more precise on 8 of February 2018) I created my first ever Google Adwords ad. Today Google’s advertising platform is called Google Ads, and I am creating and improving ads on a daily basis. I guess …
There is a quick and simple automated solution and you can even get it for free But wait. Discover nine reasons why you are better off paying for an SSL certificate. You will be glad to pay and get an even bigger smile on your face. Website encryption is for banks and villains. That is …
Why your website is losing 28% of potential visitors if HTTPS is not enabled Read More »
Stop wasting time. Consider it done with The Best Freelancers at Fiverr PRO. Get the Peace of Mind and Quality Time You Deserve. Specific tasks are easy to delegate. So why keep doing it yourself? The first time I ordered a gig on Fiverr I remember my next cup of coffee tasted a whole lot …
Things are going well with Google Ads consulting. After I obtained my Google Adwords Search certificate more jobs came my way and I steadily start building a portfolio of clients. I have to be selective in accepting new clients, to meet my Agency Goals of Advertising for Sustainable Businesses. Yes. I recently upgraded my Upwork …
How to become a Google Partner? Fast track to become one. Read More »
Sometimes things seem to make sense all of a sudden. Last year Freelancing on UpWork has been a great move and I truly enjoy writing publicity, creating and optimizing advertisements. I was so focussed on that I did not do too much about my own website, so heres an update. I have some digital projects …
One wakes up one day and decides to start a career in advertising. Is it like that? Ask a group of toddlers what they want to do when the grow up. Few will tell you they are interested in advertising. When you asked me when I was little, I did not know what to become. …
Advertising – just some thougts kind of my landing page back in 2018 Read More »
I invested a lot of research efforts in the early development stages of Backbone Management System. It was to be my first SaaS business. The short answer is that I do not want to manage a multi-million dollar SaaS start up. That is a stressfull full time job. Remote teams Managing remote teams is one …
Why I pull the plug out of Backbone Management System Read More »
At least untill 3th of April 2019. I may oficially call myself a Google Adwords Search Certified professional. I was awarded with the certificate after passing the AdWords Fundamentals and Search Advertising assessments. Since January 2018 these Google certificates are issued by Googles Acedemy for Ads. Why did I want to become certified? It requires …
It is incredible. The things I learn from my clients. I apply what I learn doing consultancies in my own projects. Visa versa, the things I learn doing developing my own endeavours are directly improving my clients results in every following assignment. A great example is Google AdWords. I hated paying for advertisements. I was …
AdWords. The Symbiosis between Client and own Developments Read More »
Sometimes inspiration is not at the highest levels and in that case production just comes down to hard work and falling back to a growing backpack of expereince. Attention grabbing title today. It might even work out great. Sometimes lack of something better proofs to be the best way to go and first things that …
This is going to be one of those brainfarts with no proper start or ending resulting from too many weeks of blogging absence, a baby sitting on my lap hitting the keyboard too, and ideas fighting to pop-up first. Soo Ill start whit what comes up first. I’m excited about hiring a virtual assistant. I …
I just added Woocommerce to this site. Woocommerce is an e-commerce solution for WordPress websites and it works awesome. By default several payment options are available. It can be used to build an entire online retail space, or just to sell a few products. It is ideal for selling digital products. Including the service of …
This simple administrative trick I am about to share now can save you a month or two of your precious time and opens up access to hundreds or even thousands of dollars’ worth of jobs. While working for my first Upwork client, who happened to be a highly valued long term customer, I realised I …
Why I missed hundreds of dollars and got set back one month in time Read More »
One of the steps on my route to financial independence and anticipated early pension is the ability to work no matter where. In stead of listening to the rant of someone who claims to have made it, I thought it might be more interesting to share my experiences on my path to freedom. Such a …
A whole long time of silence, and than suddenly appears backbone.ms to be a safe encrypted site accessible trough https and SSL certified altogether just as banks do. What seemed to be a luxury but often required feature is something that almost every site will have implemented one year from today. But let’s enjoy the …
Do you wonder how to install a SSL certificate to upgrade you WordPress site to https and get that fancy green lock in your browser? I did not care too much about that. It was something for web shops. This year something changed. Google started punishing websites that do not have encryption and are accessible …
How to install a SSL certificate to upgrade you WordPress site to https ? Read More »
This week from 22 of September until next Sunday 1st of October is the 42 edition being held of the largest tradeshow in the wide region around Bolivia in one of the most existing and fast growing cities of South America, Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Expocruz once started as just another trade show for …
I just changed my contact details because we moved from Costa Rica to Bolivia. That was quit some trip. It took almost two months to get fully settled, but here I am in my new home office. All you need is a laptop? Well, stable internet is pretty useful too. That is why I spent …
After living over three years in Costa Rica, I realized that perhaps I might have learned some things that can be useful to a international public, especially for people that are going to live in Costa Rica soon. Perhaps you have just arrived and consider buying a car, you might be just in time to …
How about transparency? Nobody is reading this anyway, are you? So far replies and comments are absent. That is ok. User generated content takes a long breath, I know that. I skipped a week or two in this second weekly real logs series. That can happen to the best I assume. To jump back on …
Last week rushed by in a blink. All schedules overboard for a little vacation time so I will not write too much now. We’ll see. Contracted internal audits for management systems I did pick up my internal auditor certification last Monday. I am glad and perhaps a bit proud to have some previous acquired competences …
Week 10, Monday How I totally missed out on Woocommerce. Woocommerce came out in 2011. I tried setting up ecommerce sites in 2010 and said, no more! After trying solutions for WordPress, Joomla and Magento. There was just not simple solution available to build a platform myself, so I gave up on it. No more …
Sunday 10 Improve weekly planning by defining the week into 10 blocks of 3-hour work, perhaps you could call them sprints. An interesting approach to go through a full plan do check act cycle each week, with the 10 chapters of the high level structure in mind. Een bericht gedeeld door Jeroen Houdijk (@jeroen.houdijk) op …
Monday Never stop learning. That is why I continue to develop myself and take an auditor training to be able to perform internal audits. The course is following the principles for management system audits as described in ISO 19011 and using ISO 9001:2015 as a reference standard to be audited for. The local, or as …
The one and only reason for posting this message is to publish my idea for the name of Backbone Management System updates. “The Backbone Backlog”. A Backlog is a list of features that will be implemented in a software program. A prioritized things to do list. Priority zero (0) features are essential and must be …
Monday Published last week’s Real Logs. My previous series of weblogs I scheduled for every Tuesday afternoon. I am not sure if it really matters a lot at this stage when I publish, because I am writing basically for new visitors that find my weblog trough their search engine, or social media at the times …
Accountability and community are two of the most sought after aspects that solopreneurs are looking for when working on their start-up. Perhaps that is why I propose by me, myself and I, to start using my weblogs in a most literal way. Keeping a log on the web. A real web Log. How original is …
Is was a bumpy ride, but somehow I developed the skill to get blogs from zero to 10.000 monthly visitors. Will I be able to push this one up to 100.000 engaged visitors? Join me on that journey and subscribe to my weblog updates! On twitter I posted a screenshot from this blogs statistics, hitting …
I am taking a quick break now from my Scientific Copy writing to write about Scientific Advertising. Currently I am finishing my thesis were I write about farming systems, value chains and strategic planning. Interesting topics for some other time perhaps. I should put some attention to my Research Gate profile. If you have not …
Scientific Copy writing & Scientific Advertising Read More »
Have you seen the series Mad Man? This hit on Netflix is about an Advertising Agency and I loved it. Everything about it just shows off the efforts that were put in to make the series stand out from a mainstream production. The decors, the clothing, the cast. It all adds up to a very …
Every blogger wants to get eyeballs to his content. I described before my long-term strategies to grow visitor numbers to my blog. I still think that is the best way, but now I face some challenges regarding the time frame to grow my list of subscribers. And, let’s be clear, there is no budget for …
Difficulties converting Twitter followers into #blog #subscribers Read More »
Visionary statement Backbone Management System (2017-2021) By the end of 2021 Backbone Management System will be a significant player in the market for integrated management systems. Aiming to meet ten percent of the demand for integrated quality management systems. Making continual improvement and organizational learning accessible for small and medium sized organizations. Our projection is …
Yesterday I did the annual B-assessment to keep track of the impacts that my management-system-in-formation potentially has. It is still a theoretical exercise to measure impacts, in the pre-launch phase, but I think it is a useful tool for strategic thinking. One of the questions of the assessment is whether my organization has a written …
We are in the so-called alpha or pre-launch phase. That may sound interesting, but it means that lots of work is being done, without any money coming in. Not such a good business. In this phase many start-ups try to find funding with angle investors (venture backed start-up) but that comes at the price of …
We are ordinary business… before we even started Read More »
Three months ago a started blogging as a strategy to grow organic traffic to my homepage. My site has been up for quite some time and it has had several metamorphoses and purposes since. In another blog I will show some of the history of my site. That brings me to today’s topic. The planning …
Although farming has at first sight little to do with Search Engine Optimization, these fields of expertise have one thing in common… …it is all about growth. In agriculture, there are two parallel perceptions, or a clash of paradigms (P.T. Kidd, 2012) about how growth should be achieved. The conventional and the traditional methodology. I …
The One Thing Agriculture and SEO have in Common Read More »
Writing a blogpost about blogging is as lame as trying to make money with the ‘writing about how to make money’ strategy. Too many people are doing it. Why would I even try to beat the competition? You need a good reason, a clear goal to do so. Now I have such an objective, it …
The Art of Blogging: Learn my Organic Traffic Building Strategy Read More »
For my internship with CIRAD, I have the pleasure and honour to work with a group of organic farmers “Organicos el Cerro Negro”. During one of my visits, one of the associated organic farmers, Mainor Barrantes explained how to make organic substrate. He grows his own seedlings to sustainable produce organic vegetables on a mountain …
[VIDEO] How to make Organic Substrate – Organicos el Cerro Negro Read More »
One year ago, in September 2015 the new revised ISO standards for Quality- and Environmental Management Systems, ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015 were published. The old standards can still be used during a three year transition period, so for organizations who already have a certification for their Quality,- Environmental or Integrated Management System there are …
Best Webinars: Transition to ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015 Read More »
Try dropbox trough my promotional link …and receive free extra online storage. Get up to 16 GB of free Dropbox space! Invite your friends to join Dropbox, and for each one who installs Dropbox we’ll give you both 500 MB of bonus space. Up to 16GB free! I received a promo from Samsung and Dropbox …
Confession: I still use external harddrives. I am not a geek, but an average tech user, just like you and most of my clients. No Apple for me, just one of-the-shelve laptop with windows, a commonly used tablet and a regular phone both running on android. I do not understand how firefox, apple or ubuntu …
We just moved to another house in Costa Rica, working from home-office in the nice tropical climate in Turrialba. Now you will find the new direction in our newsletter and (soon) on google maps as well.
This post is about Technical Debt and how this can accumulate easily… Just to show an example, In a previous blogpost that I wrote quickly using my tablet, I did not include all the references that I perhaps should have. Promising (myself) to include this links later on and add headings and so on, is …
Technical Debt and the Urgent and Importance Matrix Read More »
Avoid managing multilingual content unless it is absolutely essential. Creating the content is at least double the work, or even more with several languages. Ofcourse an automated google tranlation is an option, but the output – without manual revision – will be full with errors. Technically, once a multilingual content management system had been installed, …
It works! More or less. Today is thursday eight of september and I am in the middle of a field trip for my graduation project in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. From a hostel in Nosara, with the ocean waves crashing on the beach nearby. I sit down this evening to write a bit and fill some …
In last week post I shared my first whiteboard video. Today I will show how I made this video with few resources. I did not use a whiteboard at all or make any drawings, because there is software that can help create such a video in a semi-automated way. Most offers on fiverr are based …
How to make a Whiteboard Explainer Video with Fiverr Read More »
Today I published my first Whiteboard Explainer Video. I’m happy with the results and I think it is a much better video to explain the oncept of the High Level Strucuture than the old video. //youtu.be/2oUljQe8V3M In a next post I will explain the process to create this video, outsourcing almost everything with Fiverr. Now …
Because organizations do not follow back… Reviewing my twitter account I realized that most organizations do not follow back. Following people, organizations or blogs are filling up your timeline, but have no effect on the reach of messages you send or the post you feature, if they are not exposed to your outings. So that …
Following people versus organizations on Twitter Read More »
Time is a sensitive topic sometimes. A call for attention if something needs to be done swiftly, or for many other reasons, because time plays such a big role in our daily life. The time a post is published is registered with its timestamp. In this specific case, I want to publish this post next …
Currently two developments are interesting sharing. First is the roll out of the highlevelstructure.com information portal which will serve as wiki page explaining the High Level Structure. The HLS is so essential because it is the new framework for management system standards. Now the site show a youtube video I recorded about a year ago. …
Since 2004 I’ve been doing websites, blogs etc. But I never really took up blogging serious because I found it more interesting to create information websites (about personal finance), of to write specific blog about fishing. Now Houdyk.com has been up and running for a while as my portfolio site, because, you know, you need …
Last month I started the LinkedIn Group: Sustainability Management Professionals. Sustainability Management Professionals is a place for discussion, sharing information and solutions for problems related with implementing Sustainability Management in small or medium organizations, in any industry. Sustainability metrics, Integrated Management Systems, Certification, Risk Management, Audits, Best Practices and Software are examples of relevant topics. …
LinkedIn Group: Sustainability Management Professionals Read More »
After the initial contacts with experts and important players in field of compliance management I had end of 2015, the list of potential features for the Integrated Management System kept growing and growing. Sketches of the solutions have been made and I am working on a conceptual model, as a working prototype, before to get …
Backbone.ms wants to become a B-Corporation. Start-ups can be eligible for the B-pending status during the first 12 months of operations in order to get certified as a B-Corporation after one year in the countries where a legal status for B-Corporations exists. I support the ‘plan B movement’ towards a new economy were a business …
The development of an logo or icon is something that can take a lot of time. For earlier projects I spend hours and hours drawing and sketching logo designs. If you are not a designer that usually is a waste of time. The design of a logo was not a priority, however it is nice …
Historic development of Standards In the 1960’s and ’70 quality standards were first developed as military standards, which ultimately led to the widely adopted quality standard published by the International Standardization Organization (ISO) in 1987 with ISO9000:1987 as its first version (The British Assessment Bureau 2015). In the early 2000’s, the environmental standard ISO 14001 …
Quality-, Environment-, Health & Safety Standards Read More »
Since I am working on the prototype of Backbone I thought it is about time to share some things about ongoing developments. Read the weblog on my homepage about the steps I took so far. In future I will post news about backbone right here at this site.
It is getting about time that I share some ongoing developments… I researched the possibilities on compliance software for sustainable enterprises and this is leading to the development of a prototype right now. With this weblog I want to summarize and share the steps I took so far. I am very exited about this and …
Scientific research shows that process based design of Integrated Management Systems is essential to design a system that will be adopted by all users in an organization. Therefore, I started looking for ways to implement a process based navigation structure. Here an example of a clickable image, because great programs to create flowcharts already exist, …
Some two or three months ago I was watching a series of interviews with successful entrepreneurs made by Yaro Starak. The interview with Dane Maxwell, co-founder of The Foundation inspired me to check out his program. Yaro has great content on blogging and offers a course to become ‘the authority’ on your subject. I learned …
Last week I’ve uploaded two new video’s. In the first video, I explain How and why I use a Mindmap to set the outline for my youtube channel content. In this Mindmap video, I found four key themes that lead to Online Software for Environmental Business. For each topic I created a separate playlist and …
Today I started a Podcast series by creating a videoblog on Youtube. Please subscribe to my Youtube channel at this url: //www.youtube.com/c/Houdyk-Video and leave your comments on the video’s. I was challenged to use a Youtube video as my application to a new fund for software development. Later on in this series I will share …
The usage of mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets to visit websites has increased a lot. It is funny to see the changes is browsing behouviour. Internet Explorer for example, has dropped from over 90 percent to less than 5 percent users for regular website visits. Google has announced to punish websites that …
Today I used Face Your Manga to create a few avatars for my websites users. Trough wordpress’ Gravatar, each Avatar gets linked with an emailaccount. This way at the end of each post, will appear such an Avatar. Here you see mine. Funny no? This way, a website gets more personal, without publishing private photo’s.
To share best practices on Integrated Management Systems I would like to invite you to register for the Backbone.ms newsletter to be accepted in the LinkedIn group. In addition to the scientific literature made available trough the Mendeley group on Integrated Management Systems, at the linkedIn group best practices can be discussed. //www.linkedin.com/grps/Backbone-Integrated-Management-System-8387561/about?
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