Archive for December, 2008

Goals and ways of achieving them

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008


The determining of goals ought to be the beginning of any endeavour however few people use times wisely enough to methodically document the steps  needed   to achieve these goals. Therefore many folks fail to reach these goals which may start  as an idealistic well intentioned dream .


Small goals should be aimed for and completed. In fact start with small goals because success here will encourage you in greater endeavors to come. Small and regular success stimulates progress in life and the game of life is the first place to set your goals upon. The big picture should always be the eventual goal and begins from the point you are currently at in life.


Maybe you are in your fifties and thinking towards a well deserved retirement lifestyle. Perhaps you are in the  early twenties and looking forward to marriage, family your first home and possibly some children! There is one way to make sure that these goals stay prominent in the grand scheme, put them  down on paper, This is extremely important as it will be a constant reminder of what has to be done !. In effect these may be your life goals and very important. Then within this bigger picture each step may require its own set of goals.


Be prepared to adjust  these goals occasionally as circumstances may change, requiring a slight deviation, this is not to say changing ones mind is the goal here , more a slight adjustment to reach a goal in a more efficient way.   


Setting goals can be exciting and enormously rewarding once they are achieved. Some things in life at first may appear to have overwhelming odds stacked against it however, if you break them down into smaller steps it is amazing how quickly you can progress to your ultimate goal(s). Like the old joke that asks, how do you eat an elephant? Answer, one mouthful at a time! 


Some of the more important goals you will set can be summarized as achieving a healthy, happy lifestyle and this can include building wealth, having happy personal relationships and planning towards retirement. Health, wealth and happiness are indeed ideals to constantly strive for and achieve by goal setting.


Two main areas for many people are financial goals and personal happiness goals and in many ways these interlink. Although having money will not necessarily make you happy and being happy and content may not lead to having enough money to live on when you retire.  One thing that should be remembered is health. Good health will ensure that you enjoy your goals once reached.


Goals make it clear to you what it is that you desire long term. Ideas change over time and goals can be upgraded and extended but generally the original themes remain constant. We all want enough money and we all want to be happy and we should also strive to be healthy.


Without goals one can drift like a ship in the ocean without a rudder with the risk of allowing ourselves to be led down life’s blind alleys where it can be difficult to regain your original momentum. You can vegetate in a low grade job only to wake up and find you are in the latter years of age and embedded in an unfavorable existence until you retire, while younger colleagues may be progressing to better positions.


Drifting in life is being unjustifiably content with second best and having no drive or motivation to improve. It is a form of paralysis that drains ambitions from you. Goals are the footholds that allow you to rise from mediocrity and attain the lofty heights of your earlier ambition. Setting and achieving goals are imperative to success in business, life and family.


Dream and set your goals. The setting and achieving of these goals are “making dreams come true” Now is a good time to start. Why leave until tomorrow what today can achieve.


 

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Why you need to start blogging now

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

How you can use the powers of blogging and SEO to target your market.

Blogging is becoming a huge industry, we attempt to show why it  should become an integral part of your big picture. 

If you conduct any business online or maintain a website to compliment your offline business, then blogging is quickly becoming a mandatory part of your future. And if you are not currently blogging, chances are after realizing the potential of these traffic-enhancing goldmines, you soon will be!

Blogs, derived from the words “web log” were originally thought of as simply online diaries a place for people to record their thoughts and inspirations. At first, no one took blogging very seriously and these collections of online thoughts were simply passed off by many as hobbies or creative outlets and nothing more.

But then Google came along and started to recognize the unique and original content that these trite little sites presented and the rules of the game suddenly changed. After all, unique content is what makes the Google world go round, and what better way to command the attention of Google than by creating a dynamic environment with content that is solely your own.

At this stage, a whole new SEO world emerged and in the process, brought with it traffic opportunities like never before. People began blogging on more than what they had for dinner last night. They started to blog about new products, exciting travel adventures and all things related to online commerce.

The evolution continues and today, with RSS feeds, sites like pingoat.com and  other content clearing houses, blogging is big business and not to be overlooked by hungry entrepreneurs looking to establish a web presence.

What currently makes blogging so attractive is the sheer speed with which blogs and blog posts are able to get indexed in the search engines. It is a simple matter of static versus dynamic and the search engines love the dynamic.

Following are two different scenarios to see how traditional websites and blogs differ in their index-ability:

Scenario One:

One person creates a website to advertise gardening products and services. Each page of the site contains the traditional information about the company; its founders, the services they offer and the products they sell. Maybe, at best, the site has articles and content that is updated with some small frequency that is relevant to the avid gardener. When visitors arrive at the site, they have the option of signing up for the company newsletter and receiving valuable tips and new offerings.

In this scenario, the Webmaster or business owner will need to tend to many SEO related tasks in order to get and maintain high search engine ranking for a tight list of selected keywords related to the gardening niche. Not only will this activity require great skill, it will also involve many hours to achieve the intended results.

Scenario Two:

The same business owner as above also creates a blog to supplement their company website. Now, instead of focusing on simply one set of tightly selected keywords, the blog itself remains a broad overview of the gardening niche, while each individual post reflects a drilled down topic within that same niche.

So when the business owner writes a blog post about the benefits of “organic vegetable gardening in backyard containers,” this individual post becomes a keyword rich, targeted wonder and when indexed by the search engines has a far greater opportunity to bringing highly targeted traffic to the blog based upon that single post.

Over time the blog expands with many similar posts that are targeted to sub niches within the broader gardening niche and can even be categorized from inside the blog structure itself. What has now been created in Google’s eyes is an extremely dynamic, naturally evolving site that is content rich and niche specific.

When properly constructed and promoted, each time the business owner posts to the blog, that individual post can get indexed in anywhere from two to twenty four hours on average. This opportunity is far greater than any options available at the static website.

Additionally, when the business owner endeavors to have a visitor signup for a newsletter, further segmenting can occur and subscriber lists can be refined and targeted. And because the blog is the front-end showcase to the original website, each blog post has the opportunity to link back to specific and relevant products at the main site.

When properly structured, blogs are the biggest SEO asset to a website that currently exists. The wise business owner will recognize these benefits and when implemented, will enjoy many opportunities that do not currently exist with traditional websites alone.

I hope that this article has succeeded in giving some further insight into the potential of blogging as a means of increasing your market/niche penetration in a most effective way   

Robert is a full time internet entrepreneur, involved in various marketing and graphical endeavors.

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