OK, folks, I know I mysteriously said something about site changes and some big things happening here at SHTF Garden and then just sort of left it and disappeared, but that’s because I have been working on the back-end, which will require a lot more than just a new blog post to explain.

Here’s the gist, though: I have sat down and gone through everything in and around SHTFGarden.com – the website, stored files, back-end operations, etc. and cataloged what needs to be altered (and how to do it) along with crafting a future direction for the site itself.

Fundamentally, from the beginning, this site was built on a model of pay-as-you-go and receive-as-it’s-written for information.  That, to be blunt, flopped.  I don’t think it was because the idea is not sound, since similar ideas have done very well.  I think it’s because I completely dropped the ball on marketing.

I’m good at content creation and am an SEO marketer and, to be honest, this paradigm of publishing requires someone who’s more of a salesman – a more proactive marketing strategy.  I’m not that, so it flopped.  Honestly, not a lot of surprise there, really, I’m just surprised that I could have sincerely thought that I could somehow blend the roles and make it happen anyway.  Now I know I cannot do that without a lot of time commitment and effort on my part.

So, my plan now is to switch the site to a more SEO- and me-friendly format to make it more in line with what I’m good at and prefer to do.  In order for that to happen, however, the fundamental building blocks of this website – from the way WordPress is configured to the site’s structure and content – has to change.

That is going to take a lot of work, but I’ve figured out how to get it done.  Right now, we’re in the “off season” for gardening.  The number of searches and interest in garden-related things is low.  The new season doesn’t really begin until after Christmas.  Don’t worry, though, I don’t think it’ll take that long.

On Wednesday, October 26, I will be temporarily closing the site down while I do some big-time changes (as mentioned).  My goal is to have it re-launch on November 1, but it may take a day or two longer than that, depending on my workload outside of SHTF Garden.

Here is the (general) plan for those changes:

• Removing the current membership-level system as it is, but retain it as a shopping system.  Explaining why would require an entirely new post, but suffice it to say, s2Member is AWESOME for a lot of reasons and its easy integration with PayPal is one of them.
• Restructure the site’s menu system to match the new plans.
• Re-tool some of the ways that a couple of plugins interact with posts and pages, mainly to comply with the changes being made to s2Member.
• Re-write several of the site’s base pages which will become outdated.
• Delete (or mark as “no longer valid” but retain for SEO purposes) older posts/pages since they describe things no longer relevant.
• Completely ro-do the site’s store, which I wasn’t happy with anyway.
• Re-do/replace some of the graphics that will no longer be relevant.
• Drop the newsletter after sending a final “subscribe on the site instead” message.

So is your membership here no longer valid?  Sure it is.  However, instead of having 3 levels of membership (free, subscriber, founder), we will only have one – and it will be free.  Free members will get access to a few things that the general public (aka Joe Browser) won’t – mostly bonus and convenience items.

Up to this point, the SHTF Garden book has been published in small pieces as a PDF.  These PDFs will still be available, but will change with time.  The idea is simple: put all of the info out on the site for free, so it costs nothing to read the book itself, but offer the convenient PDF version (probably in larger chunks that are released less often) to subscribers.

The newsletter will also be dumped in favor of the new subscription system, which will in effect become a new newsletter anyway.

If all of this doesn’t quite make sense, don’t worry.  It will once the new setup is live.

To nutshell it for you: the site will go “offline” on Wednesday and come back in about a week.  In that time, I will be tearing it apart and making a lot of very fundamental changes to it that will completely alter it from its current form (function- and usability-wise) .

In the end, a bigger, better, more useful SHTFGarden.com will result and (hopefully) it will become a project that is easier for me to administer and will have a better payoff (in terms of income and visitor-ship) than before.

Thanks for hanging in there!

OK, by now, all of you who have paid memberships have likely noticed that your auto-billing halted this month, but your membership did not change.  That’s because I have some big plans for SHTFGarden.com and since production of the member’s area content has basically ceased, I didn’t feel right continuing to bill for something that wasn’t there.

In the next few days, you’ll see some changes happening to the site and when it’s done, I’ll post a message here to let all of you know what’s happening.

Sorry to be mysterious, but a marketing guru told me that I’m supposed to build suspense and a sense of drama in order to draw you in.  He’ll be pissed when he finds out that I’m not doing this in order to get you to buy something.  HAHA

A new, short ebook has been added and is now available for download by all SHTFGarden.com members.

Subscribers can download Beekeeping: Learn How To Keep Bees Successfully (PDF).

Beekeeping: Learn How to Keep Bees Successfully synopsis:

A good friend of mine, Stan Young, has just updated his guide to beekeeping and has offered to allow SHTFGarden.com members a free copy for download.  This book will only be here for a limited time.  It’s pretty hot off the presses and hasn’t even gone into formal sales yet.  Stan is working on a new website for it as you read this, so I’ll bring an update when he’s got it all in place.

“I know that SHTFGarden readers are going to be interested,” Stan said to me in an email.  “I’d like you to offer it to them, free of charge, and if anyone has any feedback, please have them give it!”

You heard the man.  If you have feedback about this book, you can email it to me directly (aaron@shtfgarden.com) or post it as a comment below.  Stan could use some testimonials for his promotion pages as well.

So any member of SHTFGarden.com can now download Beekeeping: Learn How to Keep Bees Successfully.

If you are not a subscriber, consider becoming one and these reports, as well as others plus more to come are yours as part of the FREE package.  Click here for details.

Hi, everyone.  I apologize for how quiet it’s been here this past week.  For the past few days, the site has steadily been seeing improvements on the back end to make it run faster and more reliably.  I have also been building connections with other sites and networks in order to increase both traffic and awareness.

The latest sections of the book are all dealing with garden planning, which is a much larger subject than anticipated.  I should have a large part of those finished this weekend and published.  It’s been a lot of work so far since these include a lot of diagrams and one of my weak spots is graphics – I’m not that great at them.  Still, you’ll see that they’re well worth waiting for.

Finally, in other news, I’ve been cleaning house in terms of my work load and scheduling.  This has meant making decisions on what projects I’ve been working on that I should just walk away from and which ones I should be prioritizing.  As a personal experiment, since I’ve never tried it before, I’ve listed one of my long-time blogs, AboutAlternativeCars.com, for sale on Flippa to see how it does.  I’ve over-extended myself in the alternative vehicles niche in terms of time and interest and often end up repeating myself on that blog after having written about the same exactly news item elsewhere.  So it’s time for me to move on from that site.

What all of this means for you, the SHTFGarden.com reader, is that I am working very hard to keep focus on this website and to add value in every way I can.  Lately, I’ve done this at the expense of updating the public blog area with new articles and information.  That will be changing quickly.

Thanks for hanging in with me!  I am still interested in talking with bloggers in related niches or subjects who want to trade unique posts with one another.  Click here for more information.