Here’s an example of a typical pitch email I get, along with what changes I’d make if I were submitting it.

Example: The Pitch

This is a modified and generalized version of the typical pitch email.

Hi,

I'm {Name}. I'm a freelance writer specializing in blog posts, press releases and web content for online businesses. I love to write on various web technologies like WordPress, digital marketing, PHP, Javascript and more.

I have been following your blog for quite some time and really admire everything you share on it (BTW, thanks for creating such a wonderful writing group. I'm really happy I found your blog). I know that you accept guest posts on your site, so I'm reaching out to discuss the possibility of contributing an article for your website that would resonate with your audience.

Please let me know if you are interested, and I'll get right on it.

Thanks so much and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

First of all, you’ve never read anything I’ve written, because if you did, you’d know I think it’s subhuman to omit an Oxford comma. If you disagree, read Strunk’s elements of style until you agree.

Grammar-lynching aside, this pitch has no clearly outlined goal, no content that makes me want to support that goal, and no actionable steps for me to take next.

While it’s really easy to fire this email off to hundreds of websites, all this email has succeeded in doing is ensuring I don’t think twice about archiving it, then never think about it again. Almost no quality website takes this pitch seriously.

What’s the Goal of the Pitch?

The goal here is (or should be) to get guest content published. When I submit guest content, my goal is two-fold:

1. I want a link back to my site, bonus points if I get it anchored with relevant keywords.
2. I can be introduced to a new audience and have a chance to get them interested in my site, product, or service.
3. (Icing on the cake) I can help the new readers learn about some really cool stuff, because karma and all that. I have knowledge to share and help to provide.

Every piece of my email should be working towards those goals. To get the link back and be introduced to my ideal audience, I need to ensure this post is publish-worthy, and that the reader can say yes immediately to my pitch.

Love Publishing is a Two-Way Street

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having goals for your guest post. I don’t expect any writer to do something for nothing; if you’re submitting good content for free, I know you want something in return, like a link back. That’s totally fine.

The problem is most pitches forget I want something, too. And it’s not “content”. I want relevant, well-written content that my readers will find value in, that’s not duplicated to high hell across the internet, and that comes from authors who understand my site’s goals.

Take the steps needed to get to “Yes” down to one. Make it simple for me to say, “Let’s do this,” by showing me you can provide value to my site in exchange for the link back, exposure, guest writing fee, or whatever you’re getting.

Now let’s look at some specifics.

Include Work Samples

If I’m going to accept your writing, I want to see your work. I’m not going to say, “Sure, I’ll commit to reviewing a draft without having any idea of what it will look like.” A lot of the time, I get some version of this:

I’ve written for several popular sites and I have high quality work samples I can send over to you for review.

Why do I have to ask you for this? Why aren’t they included now? Instead, you should be sending something like this:

I’ve written high-quality content for several sites like yours, and here are 3 examples of articles I’ve written that relate to your site’s focus:
(3 examples or so listed)
I’d be happy to send more samples upon request as well.

There’s no reason that I should have to track down your work samples if you want to write for the site. Send me examples that will be like what you intend to write. Make it easy to say yes.

Pitch a Real, Live Topic

This suggestion is terrible:

I would be happy to put together a post on a topic of your choice.

Why am I doing the legwork for you? I have lots of topics I’m happy to write myself or send to one of my regular contributors. I want to know you can put together an outline and execute.

Even worse, I get this most of the time:

I will write high-quality, unique content for your site.

Houston, we have a problem. It’s like saying, “To be honest…”. Why weren’t you in the first place?

I won’t accept anything but high-quality and unique content, so obviously if you can’t meet that benchmark we’re not going to talk further. This is where sending me your previous examples would have spoken for themselves.

Let’s go past content quality — it should be a given. I need to know specifically what you want to write about.

I know your readers care about ____, so I’d be happy to submit an article on:
(a couple topics relevant to the site)
but would also be open to other ideas if you have some posts you’d like written, but haven’t had a chance to tackle yet.

If you can’t think of a couple topics my readers would find useful, you probably aren’t going to write something worth publishing. Make it easy to say yes.

Help My Audience

Along this thread, show me that you know my target audience. Just because I’ve written something that relates to your business loosely does not mean that any old post that you submit would be something I’d publish on my site.

For example, I once had a theme marketplace get in touch with me, and had great conversation back and forth about them potentially submitting guest posts on a recurring schedule, and it seemed like they got what we were trying to do at Sell with WP.

I asked for a list of specific topics, and then proceeded to get a list of generic WordPress-related posts that had nothing to do with eCommerce or selling.

I proceeded to ignore any email I got from anyone at that domain again. Not just the original emailer — everyone. I really hate having my time wasted.

Illustrate that you know my audience, and I’ll know you won’t send me garbage to review that doesn’t align with my site’s goals. Make it easy to say yes.

Be Specific

The final note, don’t send me this generic nonsense.

I have been following your blog for quite some time and really admire everything you share on it (BTW, thanks for creating such a wonderful writing group. I’m really happy I found your blog).

No you don’t, you spam-mailing gremlin. If you did know anything about my blog, you would have said something specific about what you like, or even better, used any of the strategies above to show that you like my blog. After all, if you can’t show me you like my blog vs telling me, what kind of writer are you?

In this vein, while you should be specific about my site and your topic, you should be specific about what you want. For example, I was once sent this:

I would love to explore opportunities within the content on your site.

I have no idea what that means. What do you want?

Do you want me to write a review of your product? Do you want to submit a guest post? Are you asking me to join your affiliate program?

Sometimes people are hoping that they’ll get free promotion for their product or service, but they’re worried I’ll say no. Sometimes they want me to publish content their team has written. Don’t be ambiguous: ask for it. If I have no idea what you want, I definitely can’t say yes, so I’m almost certainly just going to say no.

Say it with me, now — Make it easy to say yes.

Send Specific, Relevant Pitches

That’s the key. Specific and relevant.

1. Be relevant: Send me writing samples that would be relevant to my audience so I can gauge the quality of your work before I commit to reading an unfinished draft of something and spend the time emailing back and forth.

2. Be specific and relevant with topics: show me you know my audience and that you’ll help them.

   You would not believe the pitches I get at Sell with WP that have nothing to do with eCommerce using WordPress — I blacklist those emailers and stop reading their emails. Forever. They do not care about my audience, or enough about their own pitch to know who the audience is.

3. Be specific about what you want: just ask for it. If I have to spend mental energy reading between the lines, I’m moving on to the next email and deleting yours.

Help me say yes. Make it harder to say no than it is to say yes.

If I have to do more work to reply to your email or gather information than you did in writing the email, then it goes directly to the trash without a response.

While you may send hundreds of generic emails and get one or two responses, instead you could be sending 10 specific, relevant emails, being accepted for half of them, and getting published on better-quality sites.

The post How to Pitch Your Writing appeared first on Beka Rice.

A few years ago I wrote a post on how I wouldn’t live a nomadic lifestyle, yet here I am doubling-down on that lifestyle more than I ever have.

This week marked the beginning of (at least) a 6-month nomad trip, more likely a year or so, with slow-travel between some major US cities.

Over the past few years, I’ve moved around several times, averaging 6-9 months in a location. Having done so while also working remotely the entire time, I’ve learned a lot about being productive without necessarily having the same routine or location day-in and day-out.

As a result of becoming a better remote worker, I’ve also become a better traveler. I can get more done while I’m moving around, and find it easier to mentally separate work and play when I don’t have a physical location or routine breaking them up for me. I’ve also changed the way I travel a bit to cope with some of the issues I had on previous trips.

Time Spent in a Location

One of the biggest problems I found doing shorter trips while “testing” the nomad lifestyle was the feeling that I wasn’t getting enough work done.

First, dedicating time to work was more difficult that I’d imagined.

This was because I couldn’t separate the time between work and play. I felt like I wasn’t doing either one well. The lack of routine while traveling proved to be a distraction for time spent on-task.

Now there are set hours in the day that have to be work hours, and I give myself some room to make up a couple hours in the evening on some days. This gives me the freedom to maybe check out a place for lunch or brunch once or twice a week, but also keeps me in the right mindset while I’m trying to get stuff done.

I also found that thinking about work distracted me from enjoying the city, and that the fact that I was in a new and exciting place distracted me while trying to work. The result was that I was half in to whatever I was doing at the time…

This was the crux of the issue; I was halfway into what I was doing at a given time, and I hate that feeling. I wasn’t doing a great job at working, and I wasn’t doing a great job at enjoying what I did outside of work.

So how to solve this? Longer time spent in a location.

When you’re only in a city for a few days, it feels like you need to make the most of that time. That feeling doesn’t really seem to go away unless you’re going to be in a place for longer than a couple of weeks.

During this trip, we’ll be staying in most cities for about two months. We’ve got two long stays planned, and one more city that we’re considering next to round out the first 6 months. We will be driving through a couple cities on the way across country, so we have at least a few days planned in each so that we can hit one or two neighborhoods to scope the city out for a potential future visit.

Creating Work Space

We also found that we didn’t like being away from our dedicated work spaces at home.

This was a big issue for me on earlier trips. I miss the desk and display a lot when I’m trying to do certain kinds of work, so not having those on some trips made it tough to get into the work state-of-mind.

While I don’t feel like I need a display as much anymore to be efficient, it’s still nice to have. The compromise here was to just bring it with me — we’ll be driving the entire trip, and will also be renting desks or office space when we’re staying in smaller apartments that don’t have a good workspace. This is where things got exciting.

Sell All The Things

Almost everything we own has been sold. We are lean and mean and fitting most of our possessions in one singular sport utility vehicle.

Max and I were pretty minimalist to begin with, but whenever you live in a place for at least a few months, you tend to accrue new “home items”, purchase furniture, and, in general, accumulate stuff. We’ve now cut down what we own to:

• whatever can fit in about 4 by 10ft of storage space in a unit we share with a family member (kitchen supplies, office chairs, some keepsakes, etc)
• whatever fits in the SUV with the back seats folded down came with us (clothes, shoes, 2 displays, backpacks, 2 pillows, my guitar, a box of miscellaneous toiletries, books, and other items)

Sofa, TV, Xbox, tables, etc — all sold via Craigslist. No worrying about a place at home, no packing for travel. Everything we need came with us. Rather than feeling like we’re “visiting” a city, it feels more like living in one.

The First Stops

So where to? Current location isn’t too far from “home” (where family is). We’re starting in Pittsburgh, PA, and will be working our way west across the country later this summer:

We’ve visited friends in Pittsburgh often, so it’s fun to start in a city we’ve already loved, but felt like we never got to explore fully. It also helps having some tour guides in our first stop.

If you want to check out photos as we go, I finally caved in and started an Instagram account: chewbeka14

Fellow nomads and travelers: Any tips as we start out? Favorite US cities you’d recommend visiting?

Settled friends: In any of these cities? Would love to meet up, or get some advice on your favorite places smile

The post Welcome to #NomadLife appeared first on Beka Rice.

• First, you can credit multiple authors for a post, which is helpful if you have a team contributing to an article.
• Second, you can add “guest authors” without providing a login to your site. This lets you credit guest contributions in the same way you credit regular authors, but you don’t have to have more and more user accounts to accept every guest post. Guest contributors will have post archives and appear to be regular authors to readers, but you get the benefit of not having to provide contributor or author accounts for a bunch of people just to accept a guest post.

One issue I ran into at Sell with WP was related to how guest author properties are named differently than some of the WP_User properties (for regular / “full” authors), so I figured I’d document some of the quirks I ran into. This should hopefully guide you (or a future version of myself ?) through adding Co-Authors Plus support to your theme.

Co-Authors Functions & WP Equivalents

First, there are some functions that are helpful for getting our outputting co-author information in your theme. As you’ll have more than one author for the post, you can’t use the default WordPress functions. Instead, you need to loop through all possible authors and output their information.

The get_coauthors( $post_id ) function is a helpful one to know. It lets you get co-author objects for a post. The function accepts a post ID, but defaults to the current post, so passing the post ID isn’t necessary in the loop.

You may also run into a need for the coauthors_wp_list_authors( $args ) function. This lists all authors on your blog, including regular and guest authors. The $args parameter lets you pass in some arguments, such as whether or not to include authors who haven’t yet authored a post. I’d have a look at this doc block for further details.

There are some co author functions that directly relate to some theme functions with which you’re probably already familiar.

Working with Guest Authors

If you’ll be using guest authors, it’s also helpful to know how guest authors are treated slightly differently than regular authors / WP users. You can first check if an author / co-author is a guest by checking the coauthor type:

if ( isset( $coauthor->type ) && 'guest-author' === $coauthor->type ) {
    // we have a guest author
}

Most of the time, you can output guest author information the same way you’d output regular user or author information. However, there are a couple guest author properties that differ from WP_User properties, so this check will come in handy if you find you want to output them.

*Display name is usually output using the get_the_author() function instead.

Practical Examples

So what will it look like in action? Here are a couple examples:

Example 1: Output the author avatar
We’ll output the author’s avatar, linking the image to the author’s post archive, for each co-author. I’ll break this up a bit solely for readability.

if ( function_exists( 'get_coauthors' ) ) {

  $coauthors = get_coauthors();
  foreach ( $coauthors as $coauthor ) {
    $archive_link = get_author_posts_url( $coauthor->ID, $coauthor->user_nicename );
    $link_title = 'Posts by ' . $coauthor->display_name;
    ?>
    <a href="<?php esc_url( $archive_link ); ?>" class="author-link" title="<?php echo esc_attr( $link_title ); ?>"><?php echo coauthors_get_avatar( $coauthor, 65 ); ?></a>
    <?php
  }
// treat author output normally
} else {
  $archive_link = get_author_posts_url( get_the_author_meta( 'ID' ) );
  $link_title = 'Posts by ' . the_author();

  ?>
    <a class="author-link" href="<?php echo esc_url( $archive_link ); ?>" title="<?php echo esc_attr( $link_title ); ?>"><?php echo get_avatar( get_the_author_meta( 'user_email' ), 65 ); ?></a>
  <?php
}

Example 2: Output author bio
This is where guest author changes come into play, as the guest author bio is accessed differently than a user’s bio. First (assuming we’re already looping through the co-authors), we can check if we have a guest author, and if the bio is set, output it with $coauthor->description. If we have a regular author, then we can check for $coauthor->user_description and output that instead.

<?php if ( isset( $coauthor->type ) && 'guest-author' == $coauthor->type ) { ?>
    <?php if ( $coauthor->description ) : ?>
      <div class="author-description">
        <p><?php echo wp_kses_post( $coauthor->description ); ?></p>
      </div>
    <?php endif; ?>
<?php } else if ( $coauthor->user_description ) { ?>
    <div class="author-description">
        <p><?php echo wp_kses_post( $coauthor->user_description ); ?></p>
    </div>
<?php } ?>

Example 3: Output author website link
This puts us in the same scenario as the example above; while looping through co-authors, you can access the author’s website link usually by using $author->user_url. However, a guest author website URL is accessed by $author->website, so we’d need to check for a guest author first again while looping through them.

<?php if ( isset( $coauthor->type ) && 'guest-author' == $coauthor->type ) { ?>
    <?php if ( $coauthor->website ) : ?>
    <?php printf( '<a href="%1$s">%2$s</a>', esc_url( $coauthor->website ), esc_html__( 'Website', 'textdomain' ) ); ?>
    <?php endif; ?>
<?php } else if ( $coauthor->user_url ) { ?>
    <?php printf( '<a href="%1$s">%2$s</a>', esc_url( $coauthor->user_url ), esc_html__( 'Website', 'textdomain' ) ); ?>
<?php } ?>

You can download Co-Authors Plus from wordpress.org to take it for a spin, but it won’t show up on the frontend of your site without these modifications, so be sure you’re familiar with theming to get it up and running!

The post Adding Co-Authors Plus Support to Your Theme appeared first on Beka Rice.

For example, if we had a “portfolio” display at SkyVerge to display client projects that we’d worked on, we could include our own plugins that had been used, and they could display both other related projects as well as products in our WooCommerce shop (our plugin sales pages). The ability to link other post types as related is a pretty unique feature that I’m looking to take more advantage of in the future.

I only had one problem while using the plugin, which I’ll show you how to address here. I didn’t like that I couldn’t exclude some post categories from displaying related posts. At SellwithWP.com, I write up a weekly roundup of all of the eCommerce news that’s related to WordPress for the week. Since these posts will almost always have other weekly roundups as related posts, it’s a bit silly to display 4 more roundups right below the post content (I already have a category for these that the reader can view).

I used the code snippet below to omit my Weekly Roundup category from the related posts display, and you can use the same thing to exclude one or more categories when displaying related posts. If you’re not sure how to add code to your site, here’s a quick tutorial on doing so.

Remove Related Posts for WP for posts in a specific category

You’ll want to use this snippet, but replace the slug in the is_category() check with the slug for the category you’d like to exclude from displaying related posts (they’ll be displayed on all others).

Don’t add the last few lines, as they’re only there as a guide. If you’d like to exclude more than one category, you’ll replace line 6 with the updated line. The is_category() check will accept an array of category slugs if you need to check for more than one. If you’re excluding multiple categories, use this instead and then enter a comma-separated list of all of the category slugs you’d like to exclude.

Simple! The rest of the setup was easy, and I highly recommend Related Posts for WP for displaying related content across your site.

The post Exclude Categories from Related Posts for WP appeared first on Beka Rice.

You know how sometimes the simple, seemingly inconsequential interactions you have can start the gears turning in your head? I had one of those recently.

But first, I’d recommend watching the featured video on the McGurk effect. Seriously, watch it, it will blow your mind.

Mind = Blown

Pretty trippy, huh? You can read about it here as well if you’d like.

Anyway, notice how what you see affects what you hear? (At least, what you think you hear.) Even though the person is saying, “Bah,” and not, “Vah,” you still can’t help but hear “vah” in your head.

Moral of the story: your perception isn’t perfect – it colors what you think reality is, despite what may actually be happening around you.

Your reality is the person saying, “Vah.” Actual reality is the person saying, “Bah.” But it doesn’t really matter, because your reality is the one you live in.

The Social McGurk Effect

Pretty catchy name, huh? Anyway, I promise this is related to something, and I’m not just sharing mind-blowing stuff.

I was at a tech conference and was trying to meet some of the people involved that were hovering in our general area. (Y’know,how if you’re not actively seeking out someone in particular, you kind of just float around and chat someone up if you catch their eye? Anyway, I always want to step back and watch other people do it because it seems so arbitrary.)

So we’re all helicoptering around chatting some people up, and there are a few of us in the group introducing ourselves. My friend turns to the guy standing next to him and says, “So do you work for [company hosting the event we’re at]?”

Turns out that he’s there with his wife at the conference, so he’s not necessarily attending because it’s related to his work. Yet his wife immediately commented, “People always assume that the guy is who we’re here for.”

Yes, sometimes people make that assumption. But sometimes they also don’t make that assumption.

I know the person who asked the question, and he’s not the kind of person that would assume “the guy” is the tech person, he’s simply talking to who’s closest to him. I was a bit caught off-guard by the insinuation that my friend would assume who works in the tech space simply based on gender (and I know he would have directed the same question to the next person in line right after that), but I stepped back and thought about it later.

This person’s reality is colored by what they think they’re seeing, not what’s happening. And it doesn’t matter, because it’s reality for him or her. To this person, my friend is perpetuating stereotypes in the tech sphere by assuming that the male attendee is working in the tech space.

Frankly, I really don’t care how this person perceived the issue — I’m more interested in the fact I should be aware of my own preconceptions here that could be similar. Have I done this? How often? Seriously, think about how you’re already “seeing something” in your mind (your preconception), which then affects what you “hear” (what’s actually going on around you).

Taking off your colored glasses

Your experiences influence how you evaluate reality. While your own experiences are immensely valuable, it’s important to remember that they not only influence our decision making, but how we evaluate reality as well. Basically, we’re all looking at the world through our own colored glasses, be they rose-tinted or not. What we “see” is in part dictated by what we expect to see and our own biases, which in turn changes what we “hear”.

While this is the nature of unique perception and perspective (and isn’t necessarily a bad thing in itself), it made me realize that I may bring my own negative perceptions into an encounter, which can entirely distort or sour the reality of what’s occurring.

In the case above, I’m sure the person that made this comment came away from the encounter with a negative viewpoint on what happened, and thinks that my friend was another sexist person in the tech space. To the rest of us, he was just a guy that was trying to make conversation with the person closest to him.

For me, it’s a lesson to try to be more open-minded when meeting new people or while in new situations; to close my eyes, so to speak, so that I can hear what’s happening and not what my brain thinks is happening.

The post The Social McGurk Effect appeared first on Beka Rice.

To do this, I use an awesome free plugin called the WordPress Editorial Calendar. This plugin will create a “Calendar” submenu under the posts menu, and will show you a calendar of all posts so that you can see when each is scheduled:

I love seeing all posts and being able to just drag and drop them to a different date to reschedule. You can also change the number of weeks and the information displayed under the screen options.

Changing Screen Optoins

However, there’s one thing I don’t like: there’s no settings page, so you can changed the default post status or posting time when you create a new post from the calendar itself. I’m okay new posts being created as drafts, but I don’t like that the default time is at 10:00 AM. I checked out the plugin FAQ and found this nugget:

The calendar allows you to create new posts. The default time for this new posts is 10:00 AM and the default status for this new posts is draft. You can change those values by specifying options in your blog.

However, there are no options for most users. Let’s talk about how you can fix this.

Change the Default Post Time with WP Editorial Calendar

When you look at the code, there is an option, but there’s no settings page that you’d get this from.

/**
 * This is the default time that posts get created at, for now 
 * we are using 10am, but this could become an option later.
 */
$this->default_time = get_option("edcal_default_time") != "" ? get_option("edcal_default_time") : '10:00';

Fortunately for us, as long as this code is getting the option, we don’t actually need one – we can set it programmatically. We’ll use the update_option method to do so. Since I’m trying to change the default time, I’ll use the edcal_default_time option that the code above is trying to get with this little snippet:

update_option( 'edcal_default_time', '02:00' );

Easy peasy smile . Now my posts will default to 2:00 AM instead of 10:00 AM when I create a draft using the calendar, and I can remove this snippet (I only need to update it once). You can set any time you want in 24-hour time.

If you did want to change the default post status, you could do that in the same way. Mind the note on the plugin FAQ:

The edcal_default_status property controls the default status for new posts in the calendar. The allowed values are draft, future, and pending for the statuses of Draft, Scheduled, and Pending Review respectively. This value will only be used if the current user doesn't have access to change that status. For example, if you're an author then you can't use a default status of pending since you aren't allowed to publish posts.

So let’s say you wanted to change all posts to Scheduled posts instead of drafts. Your snippet would look something like this:

update_option( 'edcal_default_status', 'future' );

That’s all there is to changing the default post status and default post time with the WP Editorial Calendar. It’s a great tool and I highly recommend it!

The post Update the WP Editorial Calendar Default Options appeared first on Beka Rice.

We rented a small office in a brand new space. Offices were private, but are made of glass rather than tiny cubicles. There were about one hundred offices on our floor, which ranged from single-person to twenty-person offices.

Cons

I feel like I always start with positives, so let’s start with negatives this time.

First off, you should really think about how you work best before choosing a work environment. I have trouble focusing if there’s stuff going on around me. When I really dig into work, I remove all distractions and go into beast mode – when I get rolling, I basically have blinders on. However, for me to get into that hyper-focused space, I can’t be distracted by a million things going on around me. I also find it tough to refocus if that concentration gets broken by something really distracting.

Unfortunately, this happens pretty frequently in an office like the one we were in. Glass walls are great for making you feel like you’re not penned in, but they’re awful for keeping distractions out. Sometimes I feel like it’s tough to be as productive as normal when you can see people walking by all day, what your next door neighbor is writing on their walls with dry erase marker, people using the printer, or hear people taking phone calls in the hallway right next to you instead of a phone room.

Another thing that’s annoying is that you don’t know everyone around you. When you have an office just for your company, there’s a sense of responsibility; nobody takes other people’s stuff from the fridge (though this seems to happen more the bigger the company), and it’s tougher to be rude or disregard the people around you since you’re on the same team.

That doesn’t happen when you have a vacant office next door and, despite the other three vacant offices in a row and phone rooms, people decide to take loud, obnoxious phone calls right next to your desk while you’re focused on solving a problem. There’s a far more distinct lack of consideration for the “other companies” around you, which I don’t think necessarily happens as much when you’re supposed to be working with the people around you.

Along the same thread, you also have no control over the office culture. There were some fairly obnoxious people where we worked (there were also lots of very nice people!). However, you can’t fire the people that don’t fit into your culture – they’re not on your team. They’re just strangers you may or may not have talked to while you get your coffee or have a work happy hour. You’re stuck with them since you’re all just paying to coexist in the same space. Even the people that feel the need to steal other people’s Gatorade from the fridge (true story).

Part of what I enjoy about our company is being able to build a culture that you really enjoy and look forward to being a part of. Since you don’t really have a say in that in a shared space, this can be a downer.

Pros

Despite the downsides, there are some great benefits to working in a shared space. There are some very nice people in the offices around us, and you simply hope there are more of these people than the inconsiderate ones. We worked around some awesome people as well as some knuckleheads.

We also met some interesting people and made both personal and professional connections. It is nice to sometimes have different people to meet / chat with at new member breakfasts rather than the same people from your company day in and day out. The networking opportunities in a shared space are pretty much unparalleled.

I also really loved having coffee made already when I got there in the morning smile . Our office had coffee, water, and beer available all day. They also ran little social events or happy hours pretty frequently, which were fun and they broke up the week. For example, they held events for Red Sox games, gave out cool drinks for sending each other messages in the office app, or other fun little “culture” things.

Having access to meetings spaces and conference rooms in a shared space is also great, and made it easy to have status meetings, Skype calls, or chats with our advisor. It’s also way nicer to do these things in person rather than with Google Hangouts as we did when we were all remote.

I liked having an office in a building versus an office as home as well. This is probably the biggest thing for me, as it really helps to separate work from home. When I’m at work, I’m simply working – not feeling like I could be reading, playing the guitar, or watching a movie. I don’t feel like I should be doing something else fun or taking some time to myself. When I’m home, I can focus on enjoying these things rather than feeling bad that I’m not working.

Overall

While I did like being in the space we were in, I’m planning to try something different now that our time in Boston has concluded. I think a more private office would suit the way I work better. I wouldn’t be opposed to being in a building again, but definitely get distracted in a negative way sometimes by the people around me, and would probably benefit from a bit more separation.

I don’t think I fully leveraged the networking opportunities at our office, but that’s also not the way I work. I like to go to work, blitzkreig whatever project I’m working on, and go home. Then I bang out the next project. I don’t like feeling like I’m wasting hours in my day by hanging around in the kitchen or playing shuffleboard. This might not necessarily be a good thing, and it’s something I should work on. However, I’m still at the point where I have too much to do and not enough hours smile .

I also expected the atmosphere to be more about “hustle” than it is. Many of us were part of small companies clawing to take off, and I was excited to have that amped-up atmosphere. Instead, I saw everyone leaving at 4pm and thought, “How in the world did they get everything done? I’ll be here for 3 more hours.” It was a far more laid-back atmosphere than I anticipated.

My advice to you if you’re looking for spaces would be to first think of how you work – can you have stuff going on around you if you’re elbow deep in a problem? Do you just need some headphones, or do you need a bit of a bubble around you? I’d also consider what kind of culture I’m looking for: do you want to meet new people and build connections, or do you want to get maximum personal productivity in a minimum of time? These were questions we didn’t really ask before, but are important to ensure that you’re happy with the working environment you’re in.

Cover Photo credit: VFS Digital Design

The post Pros and Cons of Co-working spaces appeared first on Beka Rice.

However, users don’t always know these are there, so it’s handy to add a link icon or image so that users can click it and simply get the URL with the anchor link included for easy sharing. I add these at Sell with WP for major sections – click here to jump to the bottom of an article, and you’ll see a link icon next to the header.

Adding these manually is a bit of a pain, as you have to add the h2 element, add an id, write the header, add your link image or icon, wrap a link around this icon / image that uses the id, and then close the header. It ends up looking like this when you type it:

<h2 id="anchor">Sample Heading <a href="#anchor"><img src="/wp-content/uploads/link-image.png" /></a></h2>

Sounds like a pain, huh? You could use something like the ONet Linkifier to add links to your headings automatically and create a link image when hovered. I don’t like to do this automatically since I like to create my own id and have the icon there without hovering for a visual cue, so I created a shortcode do this for me. Below is some code that you can add to your site using the Code Snippets plugin to create the same shortcode for your use.

First, you’ll need a link icon. You should use a font icon for best performance — FontAwesome is great for this, or we can use Dashicons, which is built into WordPress.

You may want to change the prefixes for these functions / shortcodes to your own prefix (I use sww_ for Sell with WP shortcodes).

/**
 * Create a shortcode to insert a header (h2) with an anchor icon.
 * Use [h2 id="anchor"]Heading[/h2]
 *
 * @since 1.0
*/
function create_new_heading( $atts, $content = null ) {
    
    $a = shortcode_atts( array(
        'id' => false,
    ), $atts );

    // make sure dashicons is enqueued
    wp_enqueue_script( 'dashicons' );

    // generate an anchor if we don't pass one in
    $anchor = $a['id'] ? $a['id'] : sanitize_title( $content );

    // Buffer output
    ob_start();
        
    echo '<h2 id="'. esc_attr( $anchor ) . '">' . wp_kses_post( $content ) . ' <a href="#' . esc_attr( $anchor ) . '"><span class="dashicons dashicons-admin-links"></span></a></h2>';
    
    // Return buffered contents
    return ob_get_clean();
}
add_shortcode( 'h2', 'create_new_heading' );

The part after add_shortcode here is h2 – this is what I use for my shortcode. You can change this to whatever you’d like if you don’t want to use this text. Just make sure it’s easy to type, as you probably don’t want to change this once it’s set up.

You’d then use this shiny new code by inserting the shortcode into your content:
[h2 id="test"]My Test Heading[/h2]

This will output HTML that looks like this:

<h2 id="test">My Test Heading <a href="#test"><span class="dashicons dashicons-admin-links"></span></a></h2>

On your page, the content will look like this when it’s displayed:

My Test Heading

Hover over or click my link icon above, and you’ll see that it’s using the test anchor that I’ve added in via the shortcode attribute. You can change whatever the id is equal to, but it should be unique on each page. For example, I can use a “read-more” id on each page, but don’t want to duplicate this within a single post or page.

If you don’t want to pass the ID / anchor in manually, that’s okay! This line of code will generate one by dasherizing the heading text:

$anchor = $a['id'] ? $a['id'] : sanitize_title( $content );

While I still have to type a bit of info into each of my articles, this shortcode saves me a lot of time within each long-form post that I write while still making it easy for my users to read, navigate, and share my content.

You can also use this shortcode for other headings, change it to an h3, adjust the shortcode name, etc. Just be sure to rename your function if you duplicate this, as you can’t have two functions with the same name.

Alternatively, you could add a shortcode that lets you enter a header size (1 through 6) as well as the id. I have a gist available for that here:

Want to read more? The documentation on the Shortcode API is fairly helpful. smile

The post Tip: Add Anchor Links in WordPress Posts via Shortcode appeared first on Beka Rice.

We brought the entire SkyVerge team into town for the conference, which was really awesome. This is actually the first time the entire team had met in person, so we had a blast visiting some of the city attractions and testing out beer samples at the Harpoon Brewery.

At the conference itself, we took a bit of a divide-and-conquer approach to the presentations so that we could catch some different talks from each track, so I got to see talks for users, developers, and businesses. The team especially enjoyed the talk on advanced WordPress development.

It was also great to meet some of the sponsors – I was able to meet up with some of the WP Engine team, who actually brought custom swag for customers that attended the conference (thanks again!). I was also able to meet up with the SiteGround team as well, as I’ve used and reviewed their hosting services.

They even had a special gift as Sell with WP was selected as affiliate of the month for July smile . I was super excited to get these babies:

SiteGround Shades

Thanks SiteGround!

The thing I like best about WordCamps (aside from the nifty swag) is that you can spend the entire day learning from people who use WordPress in different ways. While not every talk is amazing, it’s still cool to see how people use WordPress, plugins, and themes for their own sites or businesses.

I doubt I’ll be able to attend another WordCamp soon, but will be attending WooConf in November! If I’ll see you there, give me a shout on Twitter smile .

So what about you? Any favorite WordCamps you attend each year? I think I’m going to attend WordCamp Philly next summer, but would love suggestions as to others that are really valuable!

The post Recap: WordCamp Boston 2014 appeared first on Beka Rice.

I’m hoping this completely ridiculous situation with CVS Caremark helps you avoid them at all costs if you’re making a similar decision for you and your employees. Here’s the almost unbelievable series of events that I’ve gone through with the Caremark customer service team that should warn almost anyone away from this company.

CVS Caremark Review: First Impressions

When SkyVerge was founded, I was put in charge of research on health insurance plans and finding the best plan for a company our size without a centralized location. Our first choice plan with United Healthcare turned out to be far more expensive than we thought it would be, so we chose a plan through Capital Blue Cross that uses CVS Caremark for prescriptions.

Any time I’d called them with questions about our prescriptions or coverages, they were very helpful and polite. I called to change my address on file, and they made sure everything was changed quickly, and even reminded me to edit the address for my upcoming prescription that would be filled.

However, I’d never actually experienced an issue until recently. Based on my 4-month experience trying to get a refund from this company, I would strongly advise you to avoid CVS Caremark if at all possible for mail-order prescriptions for your business.

CVS Caremark Review: The Worst Customer Experience of My Life

It’s easy to have great customer service when everything goes well and customers are happy. However, you really have to earn that reputation when you mess up or when things aren’t great with your customers. My first issue with CVS Caremark will hopefully be the only one I ever have to deal with.

Before you wonder how I handled this, note that I also do support for our software products – I know that being polite and understanding will always get better resolutions in situations like this since I’m usually the one resolving things. I took this approach with each CVS representative that I spoke with, and still had an incredibly negative experience.

CVS Caremark Review: The molehill that turns into a mountain

Caremark incorrectly charged me for a mail order prescription that was 100% covered by our insurance plan. I pointed out the error in the beginning of April (yes, April 9 – it’s as ridiculous as it sounds), and was told they’d investigate what went wrong, then get back to me.

I had to call back a week later, and then the next week, to get an answer as to what was happening – nobody ever called me to tell me that they’d resolved the issue. After a few call backs, I finally got the answer that a check would be mailed, as they couldn’t process a refund directly onto the card they’d charged (which should have been my first red flag – “Check’s in the mail” is never a good thing to hear).

However, nobody could tell me when that check would actually be sent. Finally, at the end of May I got a reference number for the case and this helpful woman also confirmed my address for the check that would be sent since we’d updated it recently. I was also told that someone from accounts would call me to let me know more information. This was the only time I’d actually had somebody call me from CVS Caremark.

The accounts team representative called and told me that a check would be sent, but they didn’t know when. Oh, and it would probably be at least a month, so don’t bother calling back for another month.

Yes, it was just as rude and obnoxious as it sounds. This was on May 22.

CVS Caremark Review: Wait, it gets worse

So you’d probably do what I did next: charged that sucker right back. I’m not waiting over 2 months for a refund that should just go back on my credit card. So as soon as I got off of the phone with the incredibly rude accounts representative, I got in touch with American Express and cited the reference number for a case that said I was due a refund, just not yet. Y’know, because 2-3 months is normal for a refund on something that they screwed up.

So a month later, American Express resolves the issue and refunds me the charge (June 26).

CVS Caremark Review: Wait, now it really gets worse

Okay, so I’ve got the money back that I’m owed, and we should be done now, right?

So remember CVS Caremark, the company that can’t keep their head straight enough to process a refund in less than 3 months? They manage to send me a notice about the chargeback and the now-outstanding account balance within 2 weeks. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

So of course, I call them July 11 to ask them to wipe the account balance and just cancel the refund check I’m liable to never receive, because now we’re square. Apparently we couldn’t wipe the balance because my case is still being investigated. Remember that part, it’s important. Repeat: they can’t issue me a refund yet because the case isn’t closed (spoiler alert: they try to lie to me about this later).

I ask them to put a freeze on everything and make sure that nothing is charged or sent to collections until this is resolved, and they confirm that’s the case.

CVS Caremark Review: Now we cross into ridiculousness

So less than a week after this conversation, I see a pending charge for the exact amount I charged back, which seems a bit weird. My prescription is being filled now, but remember that it’s covered 100%, so I’m not being charged for that. I call to make sure that they’re not going back on what they told me five days ago and I’m assured that it won’t be captured; they just authorize a charge before mailing.

I point out that this authorization is usually $1, not an exact amount in the hundreds of dollars. They confirm that it won’t be charged.

I think you see where this is going.

Yep, I’m charged the amount I charged back – first lie (unless you count “you’ll receive a check”). I confirm this on July 19 when someone tells me they re-charged what I had charged back because my account balance was outstanding. In case you don’t know this, merchants are not allowed to re-charge chargebacks; they have to be settled with their own collection method.

Now I’m pissed. Okay, I was already, but now I’m furious. I get to speak with a “senior resolutions manager” who tells me that a refund could take until the end of the year. As in, 8 months total. When I say this is unacceptable and I’ll be charging it back immediately again if this is the case, she says she’ll call me back no later than Wednesday night with news on refunding this charge.

And this is the second outright lie of many I am told.

CVS Caremark Review: Lord of the Lies

Monae from CVS Caremark never calls me back, so I call back on July 24 to say, “Umm, hey, you lied and said you’d call back. You didn’t.” I’m told that she left a voicemail (neither myself nor Max have a voicemail, and I confirm these are the only 2 phone numbers on file). Lie.

I’m told that a check was mailed to me May 2. Another lie. Remember that,

1. on May 22 the accounts team said a check wasn’t mailed, and
2. less than 2 weeks ago on July 11 they said that they couldn’t refund this and mark the account as resolved until their investigation was complete.

Oh, and they sent a check to my old address. The one they’d confirmed was changed. Yet another lie. I said, “That’s okay, I still owned that house until June 30 and received all other mail, including a check from my auto insurance company.”

Now they try to back pedal and blame the post office, then the address mixup despite the fact that they’ve been sending prescriptions to the right place. Nevermind that I still got all mail at that address until the end of June and everything that was forwarded to the new address. Oh, and they couldn’t send a check anyway when I called on July 11, but somehow they already one got sent May 2.

However, I just want the money back. So we say, okay we’ll cancel that “check” and refund your card. And my new friend at CVS tells me there’s no way to refund the AmEx they charged, but they can put it on my debit card instead. I think we’re at lie #6 or 7, because they can definitely refund my AmEx. I insist, but he continues to say it’s not possible.

I give him Max’s debit number instead and he confirms it will not be added to my payment methods in my account – God knows I don’t want money coming straight out of my checking account to this asinine company. Lied again. The debit card is successfully added to my account payment methods despite this assurance, but no refund shows up.

I have to delete it and call again for a refund. Now all of the sudden we can refund my American Express. My newest friend at CVS Caremark promises me that the refund will show up within 72 hours. This time I’m actually hopeful since I’m given a definite time period and it’s going on the card that was charged. Nope, Lie number…what the hell are we on again? 9?

I try one last time on August 12. Barbara promises me that Susan from account resolutions will call me back by Friday 8/15 at the latest, and this will be completely resolved by then.

Yeah, what do you think happened? Lie #12,000. Nobody calls me Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. Nobody calls Max’s phone either.

CVS Caremark Review: Conclusions

I had to charge this back again with an American Express rep who was incensed on my behalf (which felt great), and had to issue a merchant block on CVS Caremark (so they can’t charge my card) because of their ineptitude and dishonesty. I’m so pleasantly surprised at this being resolved in 4 minutes because this is what great customer service looks like.

I’ll still have to get Caremark to wipe this account balance once this newest chargeback is processed because they’ll probably note that I have an outstanding balance again (as they did the first time). Now I think they’ve lied enough times that they can’t keep this straight, and will no longer have the “this isn’t resolved” excuse.

Never have I dealt with a company that was not only unable to carry out basic business functions (such as refunds), but was outright dishonest with customers. Telling me 4 times that a refund would be processed without processing this refund is incomprehensible, and there’s no viable excuse for it.

I’m hoping that this can reach you if you’re looking for new insurance or a plan to replace the insurance you have currently. Avoid CVS Caremark – for your sake and for the employees that you’re trying to take care of. If this is how they treat me when they messed up their own billing, imagine how this will be for any other serious billing issue.

And get an American Express card.

The post Winner of the Worst Service Ever: CVS Caremark Review appeared first on Beka Rice.