How many times have you uttered those very same words, or something similar enough, only to find out that whatever you have lying around your house, won't get it out, whether it's cat/dog/kid pee, grass stains, blood or even wine from last Saturdays soiree?
Need to get rid of something?
No, I'm not talking about the kind of "something" that Uncle Vito and Cousin Dominic can help you get rid of! I'm talking about everything from the above mentioned day to day problems, to garden pests (sorry I couldn't find anything for "pests of the next door neighbour" kind), back acne (ewwww), toenail fungus (and again I say, ewwww!), and even man boobs! I found it all on one very convenient site, that not only addresses all of these issues, and several more; but does so with wit and an aim towards solutions that are not only ecologically and environmentally sound, but inexpensive as well.
I stumbled upon How to Get Rid of Things when I was searching for ways to get rid of the nasty, horrid little eight legged freaks that have deemed our home their own. I immediately found something that would work for not only my chicken-shit self, but a solution that I felt good using around my kids, that damned Goldendoodle puppy and the two cats who have decided that spider-slaying is beneath them. Little did I know I'd end up spending almost 4 solid hours reading through the entire site and the associated blog, thus developing my very first "blog crush" and wanting to know more about the brains behind How to Get Rid of Things.
Oh and get this my luvlies, there are also forums that are part of the site. (I'm still trying to talk Jonathan and crew into getting hooked up with Twitter. I'll let you know how that goes.) You can ask anything in there (Get rid of spiders, bats and mice, Oh my! Blood, gore, pee and so much more!), and there is typically someone out there who can help you out or lead you in the right direction. It's also a GREAT place to contribute your own suggestions, especially if you don't see it listed on the site. But a bit of advice, don't advertize your email address in the forums as it's frowned upon, which, in my eyes, considering the number of "penis enhancement" emails I get, is probably a good idea.
I decided to email the creator of the site and blog, Jonathan Hatch, and ask him if he'd be willing to field a few questions from me about the site, his blog (his personal one too!) and other Interweb pursuits he has in the works so that I could share them with you, as a lot of you who read Barking Mad have kids and pets (and maybe even toe fungus and back acne - however don't feel guilty if you don't want to share that little tidbit with us, seriously, it's OK!) and so much of the information contained in the site is useful and practical and more than that, safe to use around our little ones and pets.
Jonathan was very generous with his time and not only answered all of my initial questions, but when I discovered he was an outrageously gifted photographer, he humoured me and answered even more questions.
Ironically enough, Jonathan, who earned a B.F.A in Creative Writing and an M.A. in English, says, How to Get Rid of Things started out with the first page I visited, How to Get Rid of Spiders, which began as a school project he was working on, specifically a web writing class. Jonathan says; "As it turns out, How to Get Rid of Spiders ended up getting quite a bit of traffic a few months after it was published. From there I decided to see if similarly constructed articles with the "get rid of" theme would gather just as much traffic. Turns out it did. Thus, How to Get Rid of Things was born, and it's sort of been a runaway success from a traffic/revenue perspective." According to Jonathan the site averages, "30,000 unique visitors a day with roughly 230 articles just on How to Get Rid of Things."
I wanted to know where the impetus for eco-friendly solutions came from and Jonathan says that they were "part of the original Spider article." He received a lot of email with even more suggestions for other inexpensive/eco-friendly solutions. Jonathan said he "decided that it would be a good idea to keep the natural/organic sections persisting throughout the site, as much as possible." He noticed that people were "sick of harsh chemicals and abrasives. They wanted to clean things without wondering whether or not they were going to get cancer or poison their cats. Thus, How To Clean Things was born." I'm sure many consumers, especially moms, are grateful for that. I know I am; with my propensity for harming myself with caustic glue and getting tangled up with household appliances.
One of the things I look for when searching the web for answers to questions is ease of access to information. That was the very first thing that struck me as brilliant with How to Get Rid of Things. Instead of entering a several different Google searches for various issues, How to Get Rid of Things has hundreds of solutions right there at your finger tips!
Need help with insomnia? Check this out.
Got B.O? Click this.
Perhaps you smell lovely but have another problem, one your folks will kick your ass into next Sunday should they catch you sporting one of these little beauties.
For all of you Scrooges out there, Jonathan even has some treats to help you get rid of those pesky trick-or-treaters.
As I mentioned earlier, the site is not only a wealth of practical and useful information, but it's funny as hell, especially the blog. For instance, the contributing author of How to Get Rid of IBS has a clever little intro tag; "Remember the chocolate waterfall from Willy Wonka, it's kind of like that." Then there was this little gem on the blog article titled; How to Get Rid of Beetles, "You don't want to know how long it took me to realize they're not 'The Beetles' " along side a photo of the fab 4!
I went on to ask Jonathan about his contributing authors and how they were chosen. He says; "I knew them all personally, coming out of a professional and creative writing program at Bemidji State University." Most of his contributors have similar credentials to his B.F.A. and M.A. He also went on to say that he wants to "provide as many of my fellow writers with the opportunity to actually write for a living. It may not be literature with a capital "L", but it's providing myself and my contributors good primary and secondary incomes." I think that statement right there really struck a chord with me because so many of us out here are looking to further our writing careers either through our blogs, or other forms of internet writing. Jonathan is proof that it can be done, he elaborated with the following,
"I've made enough money with How to Get Rid of Things to invest in building a larger online media company with the goal of providing unique, quality content with personal voices. We have names, we have pictures. We are accountable for our writing/advice, and with poorly composed writing found on Web 2.0 sites proliferating like rabbits, it's hard to find writing you can trust these days. We seek to bridge the gap between print non-fiction writing and online non-fiction writing."
In that vein, I was absolutely thrilled when he told me that not only was How to Install Things coming soon, but How to Write Something was in the works as well.
With impressive site stats and revenue, I asked Jonathan about something every online writer, especially those of us looking to grow our own blogs and possibly reap the financial rewards, should be thinking about, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and growing your readership. He gave me some very valuable advice;
"Before anything else, what a blogger and/or webmaster has to decide is what, exactly, the purpose of their blog/website is going to be. You also need to figure out who your audience is going to be." Further to that he says, "More than SEO, people should be focused on generating unique, quality content on a regular basis. Over time (and I can't tell you how much time) you will find a readership and they will link to your site, and your site will gain popularity and rank in Google's search results."
As writers and "Mommy-Bloggers" we hear that all the time, but I don't think a lot of us take it to heart, especially when we're hearing it from other "Mommy-bloggers." This is a big ocean, and a lot of us have the same goal in mind. So I thought it would be nice to hear it from someone who isn't coming from our specific "community" but whose philosophy mirrors that of the successful men and women who make up our online "community."
Before I close, I wanted to touch on something I mentioned earlier. Jonathan is an amazingly talented photographer and plans on starting another site in the near future devoted to Canon cameras and lenses. He's given me some wonderful pointers which have already proved very helpful with my own photography. He was kind enough to give me one of his breathtakingly amazing shots of a dragonfly he took not too long ago. When I first saw it, my jaw literally dropped. Jonathan tells me that he will be doing some traveling to get pictures of the "300+ different species found on the North American Continent." I for one, am really looking forward to his photography site hitting the Interwebs, because you know, I'm gonna be all about stalking it!
Please click on the photograph to enlarge and see this beauty in all his awesome glory!
One more thing before I forget. For all of my readers who are talented with banners and buttons, head on over to How to Get Rid of Things and drop Jonathan a line. He SERIOUSLY needs some buttons and banners for people like us who wouldn't mind showing him some of that famous mommy-blogger love and he's more than open to help in that area!
I hope that you all will take some time to go over to How to Get Rid of Things , the How to Get Rid of Things Blog as well as Jonathan's own personal blog, eRhetorician for Hire.
Jonathan, thanks for your generousity of time, and thank you for creating an awesome site with myriad solutions and practical advice for everyday situations, and some, well...some not so everyday stuff! Some of us (like *cough* myself) can use all the help we can get!
For the rest of you, my chat with Jonathan is my inaugural article for a monthly feature called "Best of the Web." I will be featuring one website [per month] and reviewing it indepth and talking with the creator behind it. If you have a favourite website that you'd love to know more about, or you think could use some publicity, email me at iambarkingmad at gmail dot com. These need to be websites and not specifically blogs. For those who submit a site and it's chosen, the wonderful (and I can not say this enough, I love these folks!) people at Camelbak have generously provided me with a 24oz BPA-Free bottle to give you. These bottles rock my world! Not only are they resilient, they are attractive and easy for my two year old to use, which was a HUGE plus for me. No joke, everyone in our family has at least two of these. And they come in pretty cool colours and designs.
