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?
Top comments (13)
Four years of trying to be the perfect professional, dyeing the hair natural for interviews that never came, then building the shop anyway. That "be yourself vs wait for opportunity" question at the end is the real one. Which way are you leaning this week?
I am leaning in the direction that I am tired of other people's politically correct opinions. I am feeling generally angry and rebellious. Nothing malicious, just fed up with things.
At first I embraced the personality change with open arms after being run over several times by life. But now I feel like a boiling pot with a lid bolted on.
If something doesn't work, you make changes, and try again, otherwise, we are idiots. This is true, right? 😂 or is this also a lie. Beginning to wonder. 😂😂😂
Tired of other people's opinions after getting run over is a clear signal, not a character flaw. The boiling pot with a lid bolted on is a brutal image. If something stopped working for four years, trying a different shape is the rational move. Curious what rebellious looks like in practice for you this week, neon hair, louder shop, or just saying no more often.
I should probably say no more often. 😂😂😂
Saying no more often might be the lid coming off a notch. Curious whether that's about interviews, free design work, or the people who want you smaller. Either way, it beats another year of dyeing the hair natural for rooms that never opened.
bro I checked it, I'm in India so I can't order it 😆, but bro designs are good like you can really open a big brand... I think it is already set to be big cool brand bro keep it up... also bro where is review section per product? like it is missing now you should add it, I can see reviews on google map but there should be per product reviews too isn't? and should be visible in that product just like amazon.
🫡🔥🔥
Hi @akhourianmolkumar , thank you for your kind words!
When I start getting some real sales, the reviews will come. My Etsy had over 3,000 sales, and a lot of my selling has been in person, at events. The reviews will come, even if they take a year or two. I pulled in the google reviews so that people know I didn't just "appear out of nowhere." haha. I've been a blacklight artist a while. I could allow shipping other places, but it gets complicated quickly, I'm not sure that too many people will want to pay $40 for a t-shirt that is also $40. LOL. Get's expensive fast. Idk, you think I should allow shipping to countries even if I have to charge them a big shipping fee?
Pulling the plug on all the pre-existing business web-remnants and building from complete scratch is a very slow process. It's not a fast operation, and being an artist is a life long journey. I have my entire life to wait for a review and until then I will keep creating, coding, and getting into things I do not understand. 🤣⭐
Nah for now leave foreign shipping first scale a little bit more...
Yeah I did not really want to get to terribly tangled up in all that, at least yet. I have looked into selling on amazon previously. It is possible, but would likely require the purchasing of GTINs for every product which can get expensive fast. That is a whole new level of management and mess-avoiding! XD
Bro is there any custom features available? Means if I want my own design with your signature style? If not then add it bro locally it will boost you, also manufacturing is in house or you've partnered with a third party manufacturer?
First of all, I think you should absolutely just be yourself! Life is too short to spend so much time trying to fit into some mold of what a "professional" is supposed to look like, especially when doing everything the "right" way hasn't really gotten you anywhere anyway.
And honestly, reading through everything you've been doing, I hope you realize how much you've actually accomplished. It's a lot. I think sometimes we get so caught up in what we haven't accomplished yet that we forget to give ourselves credit for everything we have.
I know none of that makes the frustration of trying to find opportunities any easier, but I really hope you don't let the job market make you question what you're capable of. It's hard enough trying to find your place in tech without feeling like you have to change your whole personality to be taken seriously.
And as someone who's had pretty much every hair color imaginable over the years (I honestly think I've tried them all lol), I fully support the colorful hair! I've never understood why things like that should matter so much. You can have pink hair, be creative, be a little different, and still know your shit. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
I really hope things start turning around for you. You've clearly put a ton of work into learning and building things, and you deserve to feel proud of that, whether or not some employer has recognized it yet. And please don't give up the things that make you happy just to fit someone else's idea of what you're supposed to be. There's nothing wrong with being yourself.
One technical detail I'd be curious about, especially given your earlier 404 and redirect issues, is how you're preserving attribution across the entire customer journey.
There's a nasty edge case with Google Ads where a redirect silently drops the
gclidparameter. The visitor still reaches the store, browses products, and might even complete a purchase, but the conversion can end up attributed incorrectly because the original click identifier never made it to the final landing page.I've seen Google explicitly document this behavior, and it's one of those problems where your traffic numbers can look perfectly healthy while your campaign reporting tells a completely different story.
I'd probably log the original landing URL, GCLID, redirect destination, and eventual order ID together, then compare that against GA4's purchase events. That gives you a much clearer picture of whether you're dealing with irrelevant traffic, broken attribution, or an actual conversion problem.
Also, I think there's something interesting about your whole experience here: you're not just building an ecommerce website anymore. You're gradually putting together the infrastructure around it, from networking and storage to automation, analytics, and operations. That's a pretty different level of learning than just getting a storefront online.
I think there's an interesting connection between creative burnout and context switching in software development. When you're juggling frontend work, network configuration, analytics, SEO, and deployment, you're constantly rebuilding your mental model of each system. Even a quick switch back to debugging a production issue can cost more than the interruption itself. Sometimes reducing the number of active problems is more valuable than finding another productivity tool. Your post actually captures that side of building things pretty well.