Every time I need to do a good housecleaning, get ready for a garage sale or clean out my closet, I watch the TLC Show, Hoarding - Buried Alive. Hoarders, on this show, range from the neat and tidy shopaholic to the brain-damaged individual who just can't organize or understand why he collects things and brings them to his tiny apartment.
Many hoarders have a precipitaing incident, such as the
Tuesday 31 August 2010
Saturday 28 August 2010
How To Make Money Using Credit Cards
Most of us only think of credit cards as ways to spend money and not ways to make money. But, if you really think about we could all stand to make a bit more money using the same kinds of tricks that card issuers use to get our business. Credit card companies have become infamous for luring new customers with the offer of no interest on purchases. While this sounds great in the beginning, consumers quickly find that once the introductory period runs out they are slammed with a high standard rate. For those who carry a balance on their credit cards this usually means spending loads of extra money on interest. Of course, the easy way to avoid that cost is to pay off your bill each month, but that also means taking money out of your checking account which just means breaking even on your finances.
Imagine if you could have the best of both worlds. You could spend on your credit cards without having to empty out your cheque account at the end of each month and also not have to spend a bunch of money on interest. In fact, you can do just that with a unique spending plan that gives you the freedom of using credit cards but comes with a profit instead of a cost. This plan is not for everyone, only those people who can spend wisely and save carefully. Those that fit the bill can make a neat little profit through nothing more than normal spending.
Making Money With Credit Cards
Step 1: The first step to making easy money with credit cards is to seek out those zero interest introductory offers. Make sure that you find a card that offers you an interest free period of several months, the longer that period lasts the better more money you can make. If you can find a deal that is also free of annual fees then you stand to knock up your profit a bit more. You will have to fill out an application and be approved for this card, so having a fairly good credit file is necessary.
Step 2: Once you have procured the credit card the next thing to do is to use it as often as possible. You should switch all of your spending to your credit card instead of using cash or a cheque. This means every time you go out to dinner, buy groceries, or fill your car with petrol you should use your credit card. At the end of each month pay only the minimum payment. Make absolutely sure that you pay your bill on time each month so you do not lose that zero interest deal.
Step 3: After you have paid your minimum payment and any other necessary bills, take the remainder of your cash and put it into a high yield savings account. This is how you will make money. Over time the money that you put into the account will grow far past what you need to pay off your credit card bill. Since that card has zero interest it should cost you nothing to revolve your balance, but you will be earning big money on your savings account.
Step 4: Finally, when it comes time for your zero interest promotional offer to expire, simply pay it off with the principle money in your savings account. This will leave you with a net profit of all of the interest you earned. There you have it, free money just by doing your normal spending. The only trick is to maintain good credit so that you can continually get those zero interest cards and good accounting skills so you can count up your big profits.
This article was written by Timothy Ng. You can read more of his work at Credit Card Finder, where he has a number of comprehensive guides to find the best credit cards.
Wednesday 25 August 2010
People of Walmart - Am I being insensitive?
True confessions. I love laughing at the People of Walmart photos.
I rarely shop at Walmart as I don't like their personel practices and I've heard some really scandalous gossip about their hiring illegal aliens and paying them low wages since we don't yet have comprehensive immigration reform. But, that's a whole separate rant!
My question is.... when I was working with a client I was
I rarely shop at Walmart as I don't like their personel practices and I've heard some really scandalous gossip about their hiring illegal aliens and paying them low wages since we don't yet have comprehensive immigration reform. But, that's a whole separate rant!
My question is.... when I was working with a client I was
Monday 23 August 2010
5 Things to Know When Starting a Blog
Guest Post by David Brown
Is there a better way to express yourself and interact with unknown yet like-minded people than starting a blog? Perhaps not. Blogs allow an ordinary man to write the story of his life, share his thoughts with people he doesn’t know and even make a living out of it. This has made blogs more than a phenomenon these days. However, not every blog is a success. While some blogs enjoy enormous popularity, others are not equally well known and some fail to attract the attention of the readers completely. Clearly, a huge number of people plough on with a lot of determination as they love blogging but only a few taste the kind of success that they dream of. So if you are contemplating on starting a blog then make sure that you know the ground rules. Here are a few things you should know before you put your right foot forward:
Develop a niche
The world of blogging is a busy place overstocked with the stuffs offered by amateurs as well as professionals. Making your own personal space here can be a challenging thing. It is generally agreed that to build a huge and loyal audience you need to have a niche. It is very important for you to focus on something in particular and have firsthand experience as well as expertise on the subject. This will help you to present things in a creative and interesting manner. On the other hand, if you try to cover life, universe and everything then most probably you won’t be heard.
Content is the king
One of the most important ways to build a successful blog is to provide your readers something that is really intriguing and hard to find anywhere on the web. Fresh and innovative content should be presented in a unique manner in order to attract readers. Top bloggers always make a buzz because they are trendsetters. They focus on introducing new things, stuffs that are unheard of to attract the readers. If you publish bulk articles on topics that others have covered then it’s not wise to expect huge traffic. Also make sure that your blog is free from duplicate content. Major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. hate duplicate content and will punish your blog by not indexing it.
Awesome Marketing
Having good content is a primary requirement but it might not be very effective without proper marketing. Make people aware of what you are offering with effective web marketing. This primarily involves SEO link building. It means your blog should have backlinks from top quality blogs and sites. This will increase the search engine ranking of your blog. If your blog appears in the first few pages of the search results for certain keywords then it will possibly have a decent number of visitors. Also make it a point to promote your blog in popular social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook etc. Having presence in social content sharing sites (for instance, Hubpages) also helps in a major way. Your blog will climb up the ladder of popularity pretty soon if you follow the above tips.
Patience is the key
Before starting a blog it’s important to realize that blogs do not become successful overnight. For many blogs, it takes years to achieve even moderate success. You have to spend quite some time on marketing the blog and tweaking its design. Moreover, to enhance your chances of building a successful blog you should post everyday. Most successful blogs publish more than one article daily. Initially you might not feel motivated to post heavily since you won’t see any immediate results. But understand that the posting more content will increase recognition among the search engines. You must Continue updating your blog and wait patiently. Chances are high that readers and search engines will eventually embrace your blog.
Think twice before quitting your full time job
We understand that you are really passionate about blogging but how rational is it to quit your regular job for it? Blogging is a very uncertain proposition. It works for some and not for others in spite of their best efforts. So leaving your full time job can actually push you towards financial crisis and debt. To play safe you should set aside some time for your blog on a daily basis. Once it gets popular and generates stable revenue, you can contemplate on saying goodbye to your boss.
Are you beginning to think that blogging is a psychological and physical strain? Well, you are mistaken. Blogging can be a very enjoyable, rewarding and satisfying experience if you remember what you have read. Go ahead; maybe it’s your turn to be the winner. Good luck.
Is there a better way to express yourself and interact with unknown yet like-minded people than starting a blog? Perhaps not. Blogs allow an ordinary man to write the story of his life, share his thoughts with people he doesn’t know and even make a living out of it. This has made blogs more than a phenomenon these days. However, not every blog is a success. While some blogs enjoy enormous popularity, others are not equally well known and some fail to attract the attention of the readers completely. Clearly, a huge number of people plough on with a lot of determination as they love blogging but only a few taste the kind of success that they dream of. So if you are contemplating on starting a blog then make sure that you know the ground rules. Here are a few things you should know before you put your right foot forward:
Develop a niche
The world of blogging is a busy place overstocked with the stuffs offered by amateurs as well as professionals. Making your own personal space here can be a challenging thing. It is generally agreed that to build a huge and loyal audience you need to have a niche. It is very important for you to focus on something in particular and have firsthand experience as well as expertise on the subject. This will help you to present things in a creative and interesting manner. On the other hand, if you try to cover life, universe and everything then most probably you won’t be heard.
Content is the king
One of the most important ways to build a successful blog is to provide your readers something that is really intriguing and hard to find anywhere on the web. Fresh and innovative content should be presented in a unique manner in order to attract readers. Top bloggers always make a buzz because they are trendsetters. They focus on introducing new things, stuffs that are unheard of to attract the readers. If you publish bulk articles on topics that others have covered then it’s not wise to expect huge traffic. Also make sure that your blog is free from duplicate content. Major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. hate duplicate content and will punish your blog by not indexing it.
Awesome Marketing
Having good content is a primary requirement but it might not be very effective without proper marketing. Make people aware of what you are offering with effective web marketing. This primarily involves SEO link building. It means your blog should have backlinks from top quality blogs and sites. This will increase the search engine ranking of your blog. If your blog appears in the first few pages of the search results for certain keywords then it will possibly have a decent number of visitors. Also make it a point to promote your blog in popular social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook etc. Having presence in social content sharing sites (for instance, Hubpages) also helps in a major way. Your blog will climb up the ladder of popularity pretty soon if you follow the above tips.
Patience is the key
Before starting a blog it’s important to realize that blogs do not become successful overnight. For many blogs, it takes years to achieve even moderate success. You have to spend quite some time on marketing the blog and tweaking its design. Moreover, to enhance your chances of building a successful blog you should post everyday. Most successful blogs publish more than one article daily. Initially you might not feel motivated to post heavily since you won’t see any immediate results. But understand that the posting more content will increase recognition among the search engines. You must Continue updating your blog and wait patiently. Chances are high that readers and search engines will eventually embrace your blog.
Think twice before quitting your full time job
We understand that you are really passionate about blogging but how rational is it to quit your regular job for it? Blogging is a very uncertain proposition. It works for some and not for others in spite of their best efforts. So leaving your full time job can actually push you towards financial crisis and debt. To play safe you should set aside some time for your blog on a daily basis. Once it gets popular and generates stable revenue, you can contemplate on saying goodbye to your boss.
Are you beginning to think that blogging is a psychological and physical strain? Well, you are mistaken. Blogging can be a very enjoyable, rewarding and satisfying experience if you remember what you have read. Go ahead; maybe it’s your turn to be the winner. Good luck.
Top Social Work Blogs
MSWprograms.com has listed our Social Work World Blog in their Top 50 Social Work Blogs.
It's a great list of blogs by and for social workers so have a look at their handiwork.
It's a great list of blogs by and for social workers so have a look at their handiwork.
Sunday 1 August 2010
Quick and Easy Ways to attract More Traffic to Your Site from YouTube
Guest Post by Richard Chidike
YouTube is one of the most common and biggest social networking websites online today. Millions of web surfers browse through the YouTube site monthly in search of videos that in their chosen niches. There are traffic generating potentials from YouTube but you may not be able to leverage this fact if you don't know the right steps to take and how to perform certain simple traffic-oriented tasks using your YouTube videos. If you had been reading how lots of other website owners had been getting loads of traffic from YouTube, it is time for you to join the successful train and start experiencing very meaningful traffic to your website from YouTube. The right step to take are outlined in this brief discuss.
What You Must Know In Order To Drive More Traffic to Your Site Via YouTube
It isn't rocket science to drive traffic from YouTube irrespective of the type of business you are doing. Saying this is important because some site owners may unnecessarily be intimated by the huge results of those that had been there before them. The skill you have or whatever qualification you may have wouldn't count if you fail to read and digest the following three important YouTube traffic tips.
1 - The first thing is to submit your videos to YouTube. Don't be deterred if you don't know how to create and upload any video at the moment because it doesn't take more a couple of minutes. Essentially you will need free 'Camstudio' which is readily available on the internet to create any prolific video to be shown on YouTube. If you are among those internet marketers that still find it difficult to join the social marketing 'war-fare'; you have to wake up today if you really want your online business to survive.
While using YouTube as a traffic-driving medium, you have to ensure you give your videos adequate titles. This is important because there are lots of marketers that make the mistake of titling their YouTube videos for the search engines. This may not yield the desired popularity for such video because the search engines are becoming smarter than they were few months back. The best option is to give your videos proper titles that will appeal to humans and be sure of its popularity once it starts getting shared and voluntarily linked to on the internet.
The basics concept of any video you upload online should be to either entertain or educate so you have to carefully make it worth your viewers' while. If you have some educational or informative tips to give, nothing prevents you from sitting in front of your computer and recording 2 or 3 minutes clean video of yourself talking. This is quite acceptable online and can go viral as long as you have useful or informative content in the video.
2 - You shouldn’t forget to include the link to your website or blog in any video you create and upload to the YouTube. This is very important especially if your sole aim of uploading such video is to drive traffic to your online or offline business. The time you spent on the video creation may have been wasted if you fail to provide link back to your site so that those that view your videos can click-in to your blog or site to see more of your offerings. It is common to believe that many viewers wouldn’t type in the URL in the YouTube videos but the truth is that many actually do.
You Can Create a Community of YouTube Video Viewers
3 - This is similar to asking potential clients to subscribe to your newsletter but in this case, they would be subscribing to your YouTube channel so that they will know when you post new videos. This can effectively bring repeated traffic to your site especially if you have very insightful videos on display. You can simply ask people to subscribe to your YouyTube video channel by mentioning it at the beginning and the end of your videos but be sure to make your videos are informative as possible.
Author:
Richard Chidike is the owner and founder of Motivatory.com. As a professional blogger with valuable years of experience in internet marketing, his motivational blog is fully dedicated to helping bloggers and internet marketers succeed online. You can join me on twitter at Motivatory.
YouTube is one of the most common and biggest social networking websites online today. Millions of web surfers browse through the YouTube site monthly in search of videos that in their chosen niches. There are traffic generating potentials from YouTube but you may not be able to leverage this fact if you don't know the right steps to take and how to perform certain simple traffic-oriented tasks using your YouTube videos. If you had been reading how lots of other website owners had been getting loads of traffic from YouTube, it is time for you to join the successful train and start experiencing very meaningful traffic to your website from YouTube. The right step to take are outlined in this brief discuss.
What You Must Know In Order To Drive More Traffic to Your Site Via YouTube
It isn't rocket science to drive traffic from YouTube irrespective of the type of business you are doing. Saying this is important because some site owners may unnecessarily be intimated by the huge results of those that had been there before them. The skill you have or whatever qualification you may have wouldn't count if you fail to read and digest the following three important YouTube traffic tips.
1 - The first thing is to submit your videos to YouTube. Don't be deterred if you don't know how to create and upload any video at the moment because it doesn't take more a couple of minutes. Essentially you will need free 'Camstudio' which is readily available on the internet to create any prolific video to be shown on YouTube. If you are among those internet marketers that still find it difficult to join the social marketing 'war-fare'; you have to wake up today if you really want your online business to survive.
While using YouTube as a traffic-driving medium, you have to ensure you give your videos adequate titles. This is important because there are lots of marketers that make the mistake of titling their YouTube videos for the search engines. This may not yield the desired popularity for such video because the search engines are becoming smarter than they were few months back. The best option is to give your videos proper titles that will appeal to humans and be sure of its popularity once it starts getting shared and voluntarily linked to on the internet.
The basics concept of any video you upload online should be to either entertain or educate so you have to carefully make it worth your viewers' while. If you have some educational or informative tips to give, nothing prevents you from sitting in front of your computer and recording 2 or 3 minutes clean video of yourself talking. This is quite acceptable online and can go viral as long as you have useful or informative content in the video.
2 - You shouldn’t forget to include the link to your website or blog in any video you create and upload to the YouTube. This is very important especially if your sole aim of uploading such video is to drive traffic to your online or offline business. The time you spent on the video creation may have been wasted if you fail to provide link back to your site so that those that view your videos can click-in to your blog or site to see more of your offerings. It is common to believe that many viewers wouldn’t type in the URL in the YouTube videos but the truth is that many actually do.
You Can Create a Community of YouTube Video Viewers
3 - This is similar to asking potential clients to subscribe to your newsletter but in this case, they would be subscribing to your YouTube channel so that they will know when you post new videos. This can effectively bring repeated traffic to your site especially if you have very insightful videos on display. You can simply ask people to subscribe to your YouyTube video channel by mentioning it at the beginning and the end of your videos but be sure to make your videos are informative as possible.
Author:
Richard Chidike is the owner and founder of Motivatory.com. As a professional blogger with valuable years of experience in internet marketing, his motivational blog is fully dedicated to helping bloggers and internet marketers succeed online. You can join me on twitter at Motivatory.
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