Inspiration Business

Archive for April, 2009

If you know how to write articles properly, then you can make money by using article marketing as a very effective online advertising technique. Not only does Google love article content, whether published in article directories or on your own website, but visitors also like to read about the topics that interest them, particularly if you write well and to the point.

It is beyond the scope of this article to teach you how to write articles properly since I cannot condense the contents of a 100+ page book on the subject into a few hundred words, but here are some tips on how to write in a manner that is rewarded by the search engines and keeps readers interested in what you have to say.

Use a Title that Attracts Attention

Your title should reflect the content of the article, and persuade anybody seeking the information you are providing to read it. The title used for this article explains exactly what I am doing now, and if you really want to learn how to write articles and use them to advertise your website or products, then you will be likely to have started reading.

For search engine purposes, do some keyword research and choose a keyword that has a good demand, but not too high a supply or you will have too much competition. Choose another that supports the first: this can be more competitive, such as the term ‘article marketing’ that I have used here. Use the better keyword at the start and the more competitive one at the end of the title. Selecting the right keywords is an important part of learning how to write articles.

The Opening Paragraph

This will either chase the reader away or keep them on the page. If they reach past the opening paragraph, they will likely read the article to the end, assuming it is not too long. Around 500 – 900 words are best for an article, and no more than 80 for the opening paragraph.

Use this paragraph to state the purpose and content of the article, and to stress any benefits the reader will receive by reading it, such as “you can make money by using article marketing. . .” Use the keywords in the first 100 characters of your opening paragraph, including spaces. The search engines regard these as the most important characters in your article. After that, the final paragraph is the next most important since many search engines check that to ensure you are maintaining relevance.

The Article Body

Write your articles in short paragraphs of 1 – 3 sentences. People like their information in bite-sized pieces, and easily get bored with long rambling sentences and paragraphs. Be short and to the point, and never stray from the topic. Do not over-use keywords, but use semantically related text to expand on the topic and make the meaning of the article unambiguously clear to search engine algorithms.

Search engines calculate relevance to a topic by means of mathematical equations known as algorithms, and use pre-programmed vocabulary rules to determine that, not just the keywords you use. Excessive use of your keywords will be punished by your article not being listed. When writing articles, you must keep completely on topic, and not digress to other subjects.

The Final Paragraph

The final paragraph should sum up the article, and also contain one incidence of each of the keywords used in the title. Two or three sentences are sufficient.

The Author’s Resource

If your article is for submission to article directories, you are permitted to include a few words about yourself or your website. Some directories offer a separate box for this while others allow you to add it after the final paragraph. Use the resource wisely, including a link to your website and also the product name if you have one.

Make sure that the link is to a page on your website related to the topic of the article. In this article, my resource leads to a page on my site offering a free gift and free course on writing articles and article marketing, whereby readers can expand on what they have learned by reading this.

These are the very basics of how to write articles for publication or website content. Article marketing is an extremely useful advertising technique to use online, and offers several routes by which visitors can find a way to your website. By becoming proficient in writing articles and how to use them properly, you have a marvellous free tool at your disposal that can be much more profitable than pay-per-click or any other form of paid advertising.

Money management is extremely important to your financial well being. Here are 10 basic rules to help you get your finances into shape.

1. Plan your finances. Plan for your families future, any major purchases you want to make and for the periodic expenses that come up ever so often such as birthdays and holidays.

2. Make long term and short term financial goals. This includes everyone in the family. Helping children learn the benefit of setting financial goals will help them in the future. By learning to manage money, your children will be better in their own financial situations.

3. Know your financial situation. You should know what your monthly and periodic expenses are each month. You should know what your monthly income is and keep track of your amount of debt.

4. Develop a budget and stick to it. Do a planning budget and then compare it to your actual budget to see what you have actually spent. Learning to stay within your planning budget will help you develop better financial situations.

5. Trying going without your credit cards and learn to live on your income only. Even try paying more than the minimum payment amount on your credit card balances.

6. Save money for a rainy day. Put away some money each month. Literally pay yourself a small amount each month so that you are putting away some money for various things. By trying to put away 5% to 10% of your money each month, you will have a reserve fund that will help with most emergencies. Having a reserve fund of 6 months to 1 years worth of living expenses will help you keep from ever having a complete financial breakdown.

7. Keep up on your bills. By paying your bills on time and in full, you will begin to build a good credit history. Good credit becomes such a necessary thing these days and by protecting yourself you will keep your expenses such as interest rates and fees down. This will help your financial situation greatly. If for any reason you are unable to pay a bill on time, contact your creditor and work out an arrangement.

8. Know the difference between your needs and your wants. You must make your needs a priority and get those things on your want list when everything on your needs list has been met. Getting things on your want list is great but without taking care of your needs first, you are creating problems to your financial situation.

9. Control your credit. Don’t let your credit control you. If you use your credit wisely, you can make good use of your credit and help your credit score. Your credit payments should never exceed more than 20% of your net income. By knowing that figure than you can use your credit wisely to help you purchase things that you can not pay for to begin with. Automobiles and Homes are generally things that you should put into those categories, but you can even use it for recreational items such as Vacations, hobbies and other activities. Never ever use your credit to pay for another credit item. For example, never use one credit card to make a payment on another credit card. You are paying interest twice and really just throwing money away.

10. Know your daily expenditures. If you are completely aware of where your money is going, then you can control where you money goes for the future. A spending diary will help you keep track of that information. Once you know where they money is going better control can be made where necessary. You may not realize that you’re spending $20 a day on a sandwich and coffee because you feel that you’re spending a couple bucks here and a couple of bucks there. But they add up and seeing the total each day of where your money is being spent will often open up your eyes to where money can be saved.

These suggestions are meant to help you determine where you can create opportunities for a better financial situation for you and your family. By following this advice you will find yourself in a stronger financial situation and teach your children how to better handle their finances.

IF you were presented with three choices –– time, money [seed or working capital] and good health –– which one will you absolutely go for? Which of the three will you hang on to while ignoring the other two?

Tricky question, you say? Maybe. But I don’t think so. Not when you give it a deep thought. Depending on the level you’re in your entrepreneurship career, the answer is as simple and straight forward as ABC.

Without a shadow of doubt, these three items are so essential for anyone to have enduring success in business. They are as important to a business as blood is to a living soul. None of the three is dispensable. But right now, you’re being forced to take one only. So which of the three will get your nod?

This is my own ranking of the three “must haves” in order of their importance to me.

1. Good health.

2. Money.

3. Time.

Read the rest of this entry »

t is generally easier to improve search engine rankings for a dynamic blog than it is for static website pages. Blogs and blog posts are liked by search engines because they are frequently updated with new content, they are rich in text and links , and they tend not to have complicated HTML.

Optimizing a blog to improve search engine rankings is similar to optimizing a website, and optimizing a blog post is similar to optimizing a single web page. By using the following tips and techniques, you can achieve an impressive search engine ranking for your blog. For additional tips to optimize your blog, visit http://www.optimizeblogtips.com

1) Ensure that your blog can be easily spidered by the search engines. ‘Spidering’ refers to the process by which search engine software robots crawl web pages. A navigation sidebar should be present on all pages of your blog. You also want your previous blog posts to be accessible from each page of your blog so that they can be spidered easily.

2) Obtain links from other blogs and websites. Links pointing to your blog or blog posts are vital to improve search engine rankings. These backlinks should come from websites and blogs dealing with similar topics to your blog ie. they should be related in some way to your blog. To get high-quality links back to your blog, submit your blog and RSS feed to blog search engines. Blogs based on similar themes are often willing to exchange links with other blogs which creates blog networks. Some bloggers use ‘trackbacks’ to build links( a trackback is a form of communication between blogs).

3) Frequently update your blog content. Search engines love fresh content. Make regular posts to your blogs in order to improve your search engine ranking.

4) Include your primary keyword in your blog’s URL. Your domain or subdomain should include the main keyword that you want to optimize your blog for. If you are wanting to brand yourself or your business, consider including your name or the name of your company in the domain. For more information about personal or business branding, visit http://www.onlinebrandingsecrets.com

5) Place your main keyword phrase in both blog header meta tags as well as in the title of your blog posts. For example, if you are trying to optimize your blog for the keyword phrase ‘natural asthma remedies’, make sure this phrase appears in title of each of your blog posts as well as in your H1 or H2 meta tags.

6) Don’t forget to include your keywords in the anchor text of links if you are linking to other pages in your website or to other blog posts. Linking your blog to your website is a great way of generating quality traffic.

7) Place your other keywords in the body text of your blog posts as well as intermittently in your article titles and links. Don’t overuse keywords in your text as your posts will tend not to make sense and they won’t read well.

If you change the domain name and hosting for your blog, you run the risk of losing loyal visitors, traffic and search engine ranking. If possible, keep the same blog domain and host.

9) Install all in one SEO plugin, this is a must-have plugin which allows you to specify a title, description, and the keywords for the search engines. It can really help you boost up and reach the top of the listings, whereas the standard WP installation can fall short.

10) Install related post plugin, Search engines love it when they get content pages that are interlinked. It also works very well for the search engines. It will automatically include links to other posts that are similar. Very convenient!

By using these simple, yet effective blog optimization techniques, you too can achieve a top search engine ranking for your blog. Only once you have done this, can your blog start reaching its true profit potential.