How to Analyze Your SEO Competitors

Have you ever had the feeling that no matter what you do, you are not successful with search engines? While it is quite possible that you are doing things wrong, one other possible reason for your poor SEO performance is that your competition is really tough. If you are in a very competitive niche, then your competition can be really smashing and you just can't afford not to keep an eye on them.

Well, even if your niche isn't that competitive, you will only win if you know how to monitor your competitors' success and failure. Here are some steps you can do to analyze your SEO competition.

1 Find Who Your SEO Competitors Are

You can't analyze your competitors, if you don't know who they are. In some cases identifying your competitors is very easy – for instance, if you have an offline business and you know your competitors there, just check their sites and you are done.

However, in other cases, identifying your competition isn't that easy. Your competitors could be sites in your niche, sites that rank well for your major keywords, or direct competitors for your long tail keywords, etc. The list of your competitors might be a pretty long one and obviously you can't monitor all of them. Perform a search with Google about your target keywords and make a list of the sites/companies that pop high in the search results. You can consider these to be your main competitors.

2 Visit Your Competitors' Sites and Analyze Them

After you have a list of your competitors – or at least the major ones – the next step is to visit their sites and analyze them. You should be watching if their sites are designed professionally, if they have much content, what the quality of their content is, whether they use static or dynamic URLs, etc. This basic site inspection can give you a lot of information about how professional your competition's Web presence is, hence how likely or unlikely it is search engines to love them.

3 Analyze The Keywords Your Competitors Use

Keywords have always been the most important factor for SEO success. This is why you can expect that if your competitors are using keywords properly, their site will rank well in search engines. You might have some difficulty identifying the keywords your competition uses because what you think to be top keywords for your niche, might not be on their list at all. If you don't know which keywords they use, try checking if they use your keywords – this is more than nothing.

Alternatively, you can use the Website Keyword Suggestion tool to check which keywords are supposed to do well for their site. While doing the check, you might find many useful keywords you have skipped and start optimizing your site for them.

You should also check the keyword density of your competitors' keywords. The Keyword Desnity Cloud tool will help you get an idea. Also, don't forget to check the location of the keywords – i.e. are there keywords in the headings, metatags, image tags, the URLs, etc.

4 Check the Competition's Backlinks

Backlinks are the other backbone of good SEO rankings. This is why you need to thoroughly examine the backlinks of the competition. Look for their number and origin, anchor text, etc. and you will get a clue how your competition is doing on this front. Very often you might get some backlink ideas for you – i.e. if you see that your competitors have backlinks from popular sites you didn't know about, contact the webmaster of the popular site to see if you can get backlinks from them, too. The tools you can use are free and some of the best are: Backlink Anchor Text Analysis and Backlink Summary.

5 Check Other SEO Factors

Keywords and backlinks are important but they aren't everything. In order to get a thorough idea of how your competition is ranking, you need also to check your competitors' Page Ranks in Google and how they perform in Yahoo and Bing. You should also look at the number of indexed pages the sites of your competitors have with search engines.

6 Evaluate Your Competition's Presence on Social Media

Social media tend to drive lots of traffic to a site. This is why you can't skip a check how your competitors are doing on social media. Unfortunately, this check is harder to perform. Social bookmarking sites are one of the types of social media and you can start your research from them. Have a look at some of the major social bookmarking sites to see if your competitors have posts there and how popular these posts are.

Twitter and Facebook are two other huge sources of traffic. You can browse to see if your major competitors have profiles at these sites but unless you make friends with them, you will never know what exactly they post. Still, if their profiles have publicly available sections, this gives an idea of what they do on Twitter and Facebook.

7 Analyze How Your Competitors Are Using PPC Ads

Many businesses have figured out that using PPC to drive quality traffic is cheaper and more efficient than optimizing to rank well in natural search results. Google Adwords is the preferred choice for PPC but there are also other networks many webmasters will use. One of the best tools, though it is limited to Google Adwords only, is the Analyze Competition tool by Google. It allows to compare how your PPC is doing in comparison to your competitors' campaigns.

Monitoring your competition is a never ending task. All the activities listed in this article are quite time consuming but if you don't want to be left clueless about the world around you, you do need to take the time and perform the analysis. Even if you see you can't beat the competition, you will certainly learn from them and this will help you be more efficient in your own SEO efforts.

Why Having a Strong Google Profile Will Soon be Critical

A friend of mine recently asked me to comment on why I felt so strongly the rel=”author” attribute would play a large role in the future of search rankings. In order to answer his question I felt I needed to take this a step further and explain how rel=”author” appears to fit into a much grander plan Google is implementing around personal profiles. Please note, what I have shared with you below is merely my opinion based on experience, analysis, and  discussions with some of my fine colleagues in the SEO community; not the least of whom is John Carcutt (my co-host on SEO 101 Radio).

First consider what we know:

1. Google is taking into account the personal blocking data (the block site option in results) from users that have a long and trusted profile; confirmed by Matt Cutts in his September 21st Q&A (the first answer on the linked page).
2. Right now, if you have a highly trusted profile and you have authorship markup (rel=author) on your articles/copy you will get representation in Google search results – by having your photo show up next to the article.
3. In order for this markup to work you need to have a Google Profile and it must be correctly associated with the sites you write on and your author page on the site has to connect back (a few hoops are necessary) to your Google Profile to finalize the association.
4. Google is integrating Plus into most (if not all) of their products – this was confirmed by Vic Gundrota on a recent Web Summit 2.0 interview with him and Sergey Brin.
5. In order to be on Google Plus you have to have a Google Profile.
6. Your Google Profile prompts you to connect all of your social profiles so Google knows your social fingerprint and can highlight content in search results that your friends have socially shared/liked.
7. Links are an important part of Google’s algorithms but they are heavily gamed and likely cause the majority of spam found in Google’s results.
8. If Google sees that others like your content then it has a better chance of appearing at the top of relevant searches.

Next, let’s connect a few dots and make some educated assumptions:

1. If your content is shared extensively on social networks, especially Plus, and you have rel=”author” (AKA authorship markup), Google will credit your profile with more trust.
2. If someone links to your article or otherwise shares it, Google can see the authorship markup and will consider crediting your Google Profile – depending on the quality of person linking/sharing the article.
3. Links are a trust indicator and Google Profiles will be a trust indicator with a tougher signal to fake.
4. By creating content regularly that is highly shared and signed with your rel=”author” you will build greater trust for your Google Profile.
5. The more trust & credibility you have with Google, the better chance your content will have of appearing in the top search results.

My Conclusion
Build your Google Profile because there are many reasons to believe it will assist the ranking success of content you write and socially share. In order to build your profile you will want to give Google every reason to believe you are trustworthy and rel=”author” is one of the tools they have given you to do that. The sooner you get started, the longer your positive  Google Profile history will be and the more trust you can gain before your competitors wisen up.

Trading With Pivot Points In Forex

Pivot points are calculated levels within the market that provide both potential support and resistance levels and also a leading indication as to which way the market might be heading.
The generally held view is that if the market trades above the pivot point, it is seen as having bullish sentiment. Conversely if the market trades below the pivot point it is seen as having bearish sentiment.
As well as providing the actual pivot point, the calculations also provide immediate support and resistance levels in the market known as ‘pivot levels’. These are projections of points where the market may slow up or reverse. Three levels of resistance are calculated above the pivot point as well as three levels of support below the pivot point. These are commonly referred to as R1, R2, R3 and S1, S2, S3.

Calculations for pivot levels are made from the open, high, low and close prices of a currency pair over a selected time period. These calculations can be made for daily, weekly or even monthly charts.
Pivot points are popular among traders as unlike many technical indicators they are considered a leading rather than a lagging indicator. This is because they signal potential levels of support and resistance in advance of the market reaching these levels.
With many traders using and reacting to pivot points there is a natural tendency for markets to respond to these levels. It is therefore beneficial to maintain an awareness of these pivot levels even if your current strategy relies on separate indicators for defining trade entry and exit points.

Calculating Pivot Points

The calculation of the levels is fairly straightforward. We include the calculation below for those who are interested in calculating their own levels.
To calculate the pivot point on a chosen timeframe you will need the open, high, low and close prices for the currency pair over the selected timeframe. The calculation is as follows:

• Resistance level 3 (R3) = HIGH + 2 * (Pivot - Low)
• Resistance 2 (R2) = PIVOT + (R1 - S1)
• Resistance 1 (R1) = 2 * PIVOT - Low
• Pivot Point (PP) = ( HIGH + CLOSE + LOW ) / 3
• Support 1 (S1) = 2 * PIVOT - HIGH
• Support 2 (S2) = PIVOT - (R1 - S1)
• Support 3 (S3) = LOW - 2*(High - Pivot)

The three most important pivot points are R1, S1 and the actual pivot point.
Alternatively many sites provide pre-calculated pivots for the major Forex pairs. You can of course generate your own levels by using a pivot point calculator.

Trading with Pivot Points

The basic idea behind pivot point trading is to use a move towards or break of R1 or S1 as an entry point. As the market reaches R2, R3 or S2, S3 it is likely to become increasingly overbought or oversold. These levels are then used as the exit points for the trade.
For example the market is just above the pivot point. Here your initial profit target would be set as R1 with a stop loss placed just below the pivot point. A break of this level would see R2 set up as the next profit target with the stop moved up to just below R1. If R2 is broke then so R3 becomes the new target and the stop is moved to below R2.
The same is true in reverse for short trades, remembering to move the stop loss behind the previous price target as each level is breached.
This approach is particularly suitable for breakouts type trades but it is also possible to successfully trade market pullbacks that occur between the levels.
For example if you identify the trend as ‘long’ and the market pulls back towards S1, you could then enter a trade with a stop just below S1 and an initial profit target of the PP.
While pivot points do not always work as precisely as we have seen here they are useful tool to add to your toolbox. They help to highlight areas of possible support and resistance in the market and can be successfully combined with other technical indicators to help validate trading setups.

The Moving Average Crossover

Plotting the moving average on a chart helps to smooth out the day to day noise of the market and gives us the ‘average price’ of the market over a specified time period. Principally it is used by traders to help identify market trends over time.
The Moving Average Crossover makes use of two moving averages from different time periods to generate trade entry signals.
A Long (buy) trade entry is signaled when a short term moving average crosses a longer term moving average. A Short (sell) trade entry is signaled when the fast moving average crosses below the longer term moving average.

The Moving Average

The basic premise of the Moving Average is that it displays the average price of the market calculated over a specified time period. For example, to calculate a 20 Day moving average, you would simply add the last 20 market closing prices and divide the figure by 20. This would then give you the ‘average’ price of the market over 20 days. This figure is known as the 20 Day Simple Moving Average (SMA).
Common time frames are 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200 days. The actual number of days you use for your moving average will depend on the timeframe of your trades. High timeframe moving averages tend to suit longer term trading time frames such as daily and weekly charts. The significance of long term moving averages as points of support and resistance in shorter time frames should however still be noted.
If the moving average value is rising over time, then the market is considered to be trending up. Similarly if the moving average value is falling, then the average price of the market is falling and therefore the market is considered to be trending down. For this reason the moving average is a good indicator for identifying trends in markets. The longer the timeframe for which the moving average is set, then the stronger the trend is over the given time.
There are other more complex calculations that provide variations on the Simple moving average. Of note is the Exponential Moving Average where the calculation gives a greater weight to more recent market prices.
Whichever moving average you use the principals behind the Moving Average Crossover remain the same.

Using the Moving Average Crossover to Trade

Moving average crossovers are used as a signal that the momentum in the market is changing and a new trend may be developing. This is because the basic principle here is that the near term price is rising or falling in relation to the historic average. While moving averages do not predict where the market is going, they can provide an indication of where it is most likely to go.
Trading the moving average crossover is straightforward. The strategy uses two moving averages of different periods. The shorter time period moving average is referred to as the fast moving average. The longer term moving average is referred to as the slow moving average. A crossover occurs when a faster moving average rise above or falls below a slower one indicating a likely change from the longer term trend.

Golden Cross - Trade Entry For a Long Trade

The entry point for a long trade is when the fast MA crosses the slow MA. This is seen as a bullish signal and a potential buying opportunity. This is occurrence is sometimes referred to as a ‘Golden Cross.’

The example above shows a GBPUSD entry into a long trade generated on the daily chart. Here the 20 Day fast MA has risen above the slow 50 Day SMA. Note the firm continuation of the trend over the following weeks.

Also of note is that pullbacks in the market are first contained by the 50 Day SMA and then as the trend gets stronger, by the 20 Day SMA. Placing a rising stop loss beyond the 50 Day SMA would have been a good approach for this trade.

Death Cross – Trade Entry for a Short Trade

The entry Point for a short (sell) trade is when the fast MA crosses the Slow MA. This is seen as a bearish signal and a potential selling opportunity. This is sometimes referred to as a 'Death Cross.'
Here we have used an example on the 4 hour USDJPY chart using a 10 Day SMA and 20 Day SMA. Note how the 10 Day SMA contains the limits of the price action for a number of hours..
Again with this trade using the SMA levels as a location for a stop loss would have managed risk while providing a good run on the trade until the eventual stop out on the 2nd March.

Considerations

The number of trade entries generated by this strategy will depend upon the number of days used in the calculation of the moving average. Implementing a strategy using say 20 and 50 day moving averages, you will generate more entry signals than by using a 50 and 200 day moving average. However you are also likely to generate more false signals and lower returns per trade.
On lower timeframe charts particularly, moving average crossovers are quite common and therefore using them as the only indicator for trade entry may prove of limited success.
Moving average crossovers can be used in both ranging and trending markets. While they will occur less in trending markets, the quality of the signal generated is likely to be be better.
In ranging or volatile markets, more signals will be generated. However more crossovers does not necessarily translate into more trading opportunities as there will be a tendency for many of these crossovers to provide 'false' signals.
While Moving average crossovers will tend to provide more profitable entry points in trending markets they can still be used in ranging or volatile markets. The key to the success of using them though will rely on using the crossover as a starting point for your analysis. Try using the signals generated as the basis for your analysis. Validating the signals by means of another indicator, such as an Oscillator (RSI, MACD, Stochastic) can help to add greater validity to a trade entry and help to filter out any false signals.

Create Your Passive Income With Automated Forex Trading Systems.

As you know many experts consider Forex to be a very convenient platform for investors. It’s clear that investors always look for convenient and easy options. I’d like to inform you that according to the recent surveys up to $3.21 trillion is traded in this enormous financial market. Of course other financial markets aren’t able to compete with Forex in terms of amount of liquidity.
I’d like to add that Forex traders are never charged commission on their trades. These beneficial features make guys from all over the world start trading in currencies. Of course nobody denies the whole importance of getting a basic idea regarding market trends, trading tools and certainly strategies. You can’t achieve success without it.
It goes without saying that ineffective strategies can’t work in the proper way. So you need to develop your own efficient strategies. To reach this goal you should thoroughly analyze the market trends and certainly make use of professional Forex tools. Thus you can significantly increase the winning ratio of your currency deals. Nowadays a wide array of Forex trading tools are utilized by investors to minimize their losses and increase their earnings. Automated Forex trading software is extremely popular these days. These trading tools are very easy to use. They are effective enough to make successful deals.
Now it’s high time to illustrate the basic features of these tools. First of all I’d like to tell just a few words about automated trading signals. Of course nobody denies that trading signals are extremely important. These tools are very useful when it comes to stabilizing in the foreign exchange market and increasing your earnings. I’d like to add that automated trading tools always generate unbiased signals.
These trading tools are able to open and close all the trades automatically. Of course originally these trading systems were designed to show Forex traders where to place their market orders. But now advanced trading tools help traders in opening and closing their trades automatically. This makes our trading much easier.

Forex Trading is A Business

Today’s lesson is the ultimate guide for setting up your Forex trading business. I am going to give you some solid insight and information on why you need to treat your Forex trading like a business and how to get started. If you’ve been trading like a drunken gambler in the casino, consider today’s article your official wake up call for getting your crap together once and for all…Setting up your trading room
The first step to getting started treating your Forex trading like a business is creating the optimal work environment. Yes, you can work from anywhere when trading, but this doesn’t mean you should trade from your lazy-boy chair while eating potato chips and watching your favorite TV show. Just as with any other business, you need to separate your trading business from your personal life as much as possible. You need a clear mind when trading, and this starts with a clean trading environment and a work atmosphere that allows you to cultivate the proper trading mindset. I wrote a whole article dedicated to setting up your trading room, check it out after reading today’s lesson: Setting Up A Forex Trading Room To Improve Trading Results
What do you need to get started? You can trade from only a laptop, but if you choose to do this I suggest getting a dedicated laptop that you use only for trading. Laptops are relatively cheap now and there’s no harm in investing in a good machine so that you can keep all your trading activities separate from your kids’ computer games or whatever else you have clogging up your computer now. Remember, developing the proper trading mindset begins with creating a clean and clear trading environment. This does not mean that you need to charge up your credit card and buy three new flat-screen monitors and two high-powered desktop computers. You can obviously go all-out if you want, but you can also trade effectively from just a quiet room with a simple desk and a good laptop or iPad.
One other note about getting started with the proper hardware and software; there’s no need for expensive trading software or news-feed subscriptions. All you need is the free MT4 charting package provided by most reputable brokers and a good working computer. You don’t need to confuse yourself by watching CNBC or reading tons of Forex news every day; this will only cloud up your thinking and cause you to second-guess yourself.
Choosing your trading strategy and developing your Forex trading business plan
After you get your trading room all setup and sorted out, you need to figure out what strategy you are going use to trade the markets. You then need to learn everything about your chosen trading strategy so that you truly become a master of it. You should have no doubt what you are looking for every time you step into your trading room or open up your charting platform.
After you master your trading strategy it’s time to develop your Forex trading business plan. Every business starts with a business plan, so to think you are going to figure out how to trade successfully with no plan in place is just silly, yet most traders ignore Forex trading plans or think they don’t need them…and most traders lose money.
I am not going to go into too much more detail about this topic, but you can check out my article on forex trading plans for more. For now, you need to understand that treating your trading as a business revolves around mastering a trading strategy and developing a comprehensive yet concise trading plan around the strategy you’ve mastered, and then following your plan with unyielding discipline.
Set aside time to analyze and trade the market
After creating the optimal trading environment, mastering an effective trading strategy, and creating your Forex trading business plan, you need to dedicate time each day JUST for market analysis. You should not place any trades at this time, instead you need to dedicate a certain block of time each day to analyze the charts with a clear and calm mind. Spend at least 15 minutes to one hour a day on nothing but analyzing the markets with a calm and clear mind.
I really want to stress that it’s important to take time for market analysis and separate yourself from your life’s daily distractions. This might mean you have to lock yourself in your trading room with your favorite music on to mute whatever is going on around you. You’ll have plenty of time to spend with your family and for your other hobbies after you launch your Forex trading business, but for now you’ll need to set aside a certain amount of time each day to get your trading business up and running.
Now, AFTER your dedicated daily market analysis time, you can place your trades if there are any setups that meet the pre-defined conditions in your Forex business trading plan. Keep in mind, placing a trade is a BUSINESS transaction, not a random gamble at the casino. So, just like any business transaction you should be sure any trade you take is worth the money you have at risk, and realize that if you enter too many stupid trades (trades that don’t meet the conditions in your trading plan), you will eventually go out of business, meaning you’ll blow out your trading account. So, if after your market analysis you find no obvious trade setups that meet your trading plan conditions, you simply don’t trade that day; don’t force a trade if there isn’t one there.
Emotion management is an on-going part of your Forex trading business
Just as you do not want to be emotional when participating in a business meeting or discussing a business deal, you do not want to be emotional when analyzing or trading the market. Essentially, emotion is the number 1 enemy of forex trading success, and the more impulsive and emotional you are the worse you are going to do in the markets.
Remember, you are running a trading business here, so you’ve taken risk to make a reward, just like any other business. There is no reason to mess around with your trades all day or over-analyze the market. Part of trading successfully involves giving the market room to breathe, you are going to be the LEAST emotional BEFORE you enter the market, and so it only makes sense to do all your “thinking” and analysis BEFORE you risk your money, not WHILE your money is on the line. Once you decide to enter into a business deal you usually cannot back out of it unless you want to pay a hefty fine or break the law, in Forex trading it’s usually better to just let the pre-defined decisions you’ve made play out instead of breaking your trading rules by interfering with your trades.
Manage your trading money like a business
I personally don’t know many people who compound their trading accounts by never taking any profits out. You don’t want to just leave your money in your account; you need to take your profits out periodically so that you “earn” the money. You’ll have to pay taxes on your profits when you withdrawal them, just like any other business, this is something you’ll have to explore more on your own time and according to the laws in the country you live in. In Australia…
Of course, you can’t take any money out of your Forex trading business if you are not making any money. If you want to make money you will have to do everything we’ve already discussed in this article as well as practice effective forex money management on EVERY single trade you take. Most traders mess up big time here because they say to themselves, “I’ll just risk a little more on this trade…”, and then it kicks off a wave emotional trading that is very difficult to stop. Just like any other habit in life, it’s best to develop positive habits early on and then stick with them, rather than trying to “fix” years of negative habits. Get in the habit right now of managing your risk effectively on every trade if you want to seriously run a profitable Forex trading business.
I’m here to help you with your Forex trading business
I have dedicated myself to ensuring that traders learn effective price action trading strategies and develop the proper mindset to have the best chance at surviving in the market and become successful. My Forex trading community and trading course teach simple yet effective trading techniques for traders to build their trading plans around. I want to see every member succeed, so I have built my website and members’ area to help traders get their trading business started on the right track.
Please leave your comments below and like it on facebook and tweet it on twitter
About the Author: Nial Fuller is considered a leading ‘Authority’ on Price Action Forex trading strategies. If you want to learn more about harnessing the power and simplicity of Price Action Trading Strategies please visit Nial Fuller’s Forex Trading Course & Traders Community Page Here. Nial’s Students get lifetime access to all of his advanced price action Forex Courses, video lessons, webinar tutorials, daily trade setups newsletter, live trade setups discussion forum, traders support line & free ongoing updates. For more information visit the Forex Trading Course page here.
Copyright – Learn To Trade The Market Author Nial Fuller

5 Minutes Google Panda SEO Checklist

Google panda update has made tremendous change in search engine results. The main goal of Google panda update is to get rid of content farm and scrapper sites. Google is still fighting on the panda factors. Go through the checklist and fix the factors and become a panda free site.

Factor 1. Do you have a low search performance page?
Status - Yes / No
Remark - You need to work on the quality of the page or you may delete the page. One non-quality page should not disturb other n number of quality pages.

Factor 2. Does your site loads slow?
Status - Yes / No
Remark - The site load time should not be high. You need to optimize your images and code to reflect site load speed.

Factor 3. Do you have well researched keywords that related your web page content?
Status - Yes / No
Remark - Without enough quality content, do not optimize your page titles for search keywords. The site page will be repeatedly listed for the user’s keywords only when the page is useful for the search user’s .Do not get into the personalized search users signed in site block list. At one point the search algorithm will be informed about the blocked sites.

Factor 4. Do you have high bounce rate?
Status - Yes / No
Remark - The site need to have well structured related links within the content or around the content. The navigational structure of the site should be clear with quality content. If the content is clear and interesting then the bounce rate will gets decreased because users will be interested to visits other relevant links.

Factor 5. Do you see users spending minimum time in your page(s)?
Status - Yes / NO
Remark - For a good site the users average time spent on the page should be high. This is based on the size of the quality content and other relevant content pages. You need to work on your content to hold users on the page(s) for long period.

Factor 6. Do you have related images for the content and do you own the copyright?
Status - Yes / No
Remark - If you are having images for your content then it should be relevant to the content. The image should speak about the content. Use your own image content or make sure to get the copyright of the image.

Factor 7. Do you have a clean design?
Status - Yes / No
Remark - Users experience is one of the main factors for panda update. Make sure the content is readable and website structure is user friendly with right combination of colours for a proper look and feel. Balance users experience with search engines experience. Also make sure that you include unique title, Meta tags, H tags, P tag, blog font, alt attribute and anchor texts.

Factor 8. Do you have a Meta description that briefs your page content?
Status - Yes / No
Remark - Make sure that the Meta description is not stuffed with keywords and it includes a brief of the page content.

Factor 9. Have you done a grammatical check on your web page content?
Status - Yes / No
Remark - Try to avoid grammatical mistakes in your content. Try to proofread before the content goes live. Clear content has high chance to list top.

Factor 10. Do you have more backlinks from same c class IP sites?
Status - Yes / No
Remark - Natural links are always better that artificial backlinks. Natural links are risk free. Update you site often with quality content so that your readers will like to give link from their site(s). Artificial backlinks from directories submission site has high chance to be from the same c class ip unless it is well researched. Bunch of links from same c class IP are not valid and can also be considered as spam.

Hope the above Google panda SEO checklist helps. The main factor for panda recovery is to avoid duplicate content and to remove or update poor quality content. Feel free to share your experience and factors if any.

What Are Three Way BackLinks And Are They Useful?

Let’s say you have two sites and you want to each site to link to each other.
If you create a backlink to site A to site B and then link site B to Site A (so each site links to each other) you might think your  job is done.  You have one link going from each site to the other, so that’s one link each right?
Well, technically yes, but you may be disappointed by your results with this approach.

This is called reciprocal linking and generally your backlinks created this way will be devalued in the search engines compared with a traditional one way link (which is site A linking to site B but site B NOT linking to site A in the example above).
Google and other search engines don’t value reciprocal links as much as a regular link (because it is easy for Internet Marketers to “game”), so in general while you will get some value out of doing it, you would be better spent in getting one way backlinks if you can.
Another popular concept (and the subject of this article) is three way backlinks which is kind of cool.  That’s where site A links to site B and site B links to site C and site C links to site A.

Why do this?
Well, each site gets a one way backlink and Google still see these links as valuable, meaning you are getting great value out of your links.

Why does Google see them as valuable?
Well the trick here is we are NOT doing reciprocal linking.  If you look carefully at the structure you will see each site links to only another site but that site does not link back to the site linking to it (instead it links to another site).
Sounds confusing, but effectively this gives you a way to get powerful backlinks without getting canned by Google for reciprocal linking.
Pretty neat!
So if you have three sites you are looking to link to, consider using the link structure mentioned above.
Another thing to consider is internal linking.   Use this technique to link multiple pages on a single website.
e.g. Say you have three pages on your website and you want page 1 to rank well for the term “big black truck” and page 2 to rank well for the term “chevy car” and page 3 to rank well for “tonka trucks”.
Firstly, you would make sure that page 1 had content that was all about a big black truck and page 2 was about a chevy car and page 3 was about tonka trucks.
But then you would link page 1 to page 2 using the anchor text “chevy car” and page 2 you would link to page 3 using the anchor text “tonka trucks” and then link page 3 to page 1 using anchor text “big black truck”.

What do we achieve here?
Using the power of internal linking we have created a link using relevant anchor text to 3 pages on your site.  Each page will pass on link juice (the power of a backlink) to the relevant page it links to.  How awesome is that?  And no reciprocal links are required.
So the technique is equally useful to your internal pages as it is to different websites.
For best results use this on three different sites as mentioned early in this article.
And one final thing.  Do NOT LISTEN to those nay-sayers who suggest 3 way backlinking is dead or that it no longer works.
NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!
The fact is, those guys are doing other things wrong probably with their lack of quality content, or not using correct anchor text, etc.
So do we like 3 way backlinks??
You bet we do and so should you!!!
Three way backlinks work, and work really, really well, so if you want a technique that just plain works and it easy to do, use this technique today.

A Short History of Search Engine Optimisation

In the early days of the Internet, search engine optimisation was a fairly simple affair. Webmasters (SEO professionals to you and I today) had a fairly straightforward job optimising web sites. To rank for a keyword in a search engine, all that was required was to put them in the title, the keyword meta tag and mention it freely in the site content and hey presto! You were done. This however led to ‘keyword stuffing’ which was a technique of repeatedly using the keyword in the meta tag and hiding keywords behind images, in order to manipulate the search engines.


The search engines caught up with the tricks these webmasters were using and introduced another factor which would influence a site’s position on the results pages. This was the number of incoming links to the site. This was around the same time that Google’s Page Rank Algorithm came about. Google’s page rank essentially states that each link to a page represents a ‘vote’ for that page, so the more links a page has the more authority that page has.
The focus on the number of inbound links led to another form of spamming. People started buying links or swapping links just to increase the number of links they had. It is evident that just because a web page has 1000 links doesn’t make it more of an authoritative page than one with 100 links, when considering that links can simply be bought.
So once again the search engines had to re-evaluate their criteria for gauging the importance of a Web site. This time they focussed attention on the relevancy of the Web site the link was on to the Web site at the other end of the link. If the subjects were related, this was deemed good by the search engines. If not, this wasn’t so good and even potentially harmful.
Search engines are constantly tweaking their algorithms so SEO professionals have to keep their wits about them in order to stay ahead on the game. Google’s recent Panda update zapped Web sites that were reliant on huge numbers of links from sites known collectively as link farms. These are Web sites that have many links and very little content, and are therefore not very useful to anyone other than for SEO purposes. It would appear that search engines since the dawn of the Internet have been following the same path – that is to rank Web sites higher based on their usefulness to people surfing the Internet, not for SEO people. This would imply that the future of good search engine optimisation techniques would focus more on what the user wants and less on how search engines can be manipulated.

Top 10 Retail SEO Mistakes Brands Are Still Making

Last week I asked on Twitter to see what common SEO mistakes were still being made by retail websites. This received a great response, so I thought I’d share the top replies with our readers.
I’ve picked some UK high street retail examples to help display the issues raised, but please note that we have no connection with any of these websites – so this is an outside perspective. There may be logical reasons for the examples which we are unaware of, but these have been used in order to highlight where SEO mistakes are commonly made.

Non-descriptive URL structure
Ideally you want to keep your URLs concise and keyword descriptive. So automatically generated, ID-based URLs aren’t going to help your SEO, unless you’re aiming to rank for g474502s2 - in which case Next.co.uk have dominated market share!


Long and messy URLs generated by CMS
Some content management systems really make a mess of URLs. From an SEO perspective you want to have full control over re-writing category-level URLs such as this one on Argos:

Linking to multiple homepage URLs
This is a common mistake – which is getting better across many sites, but if you click the logo or homepage link on some sites, you’ll find that rather than getting sent back to the root domain, you’re taken to a duplicate copy of the page on a new URL. See this example on House of Fraser:

Poor title tags/meta descriptions
I’ve worked with a CMS before that didn’t allow you to edit title tags at all – that was a bit of a problem! Hopefully your site won’t be quite that bad, but too often people just think about SEO for generating rankings – what about click through rates and conversions though?
Crafting an enticing title tag and meta description should be as important as writing a high CTR, converting AdWords ad – notice the difference between these two listings for Marks and Spencer – surely M&S would prefer you click on the natural free listing given the choice!

No user-generated content/reviews
For conversion rates alone, having reviews and user-generated content is an excellent way to boost your site’s performance. See this case study on how onlineshoes.com increased sales by 119% due to user reviews. But it’s also a great way of adding extra content to your products – giving the search engines that extra 200-300 words of unique and what should be well-optimised copy (because it’s about the product) could well be enough to make a significant increase in search rankings.
It could certainly be worth testing at the very least for a lot of brands, for example Ted Baker:

Forgetting about branded product search
One of the first things I check with our e-commerce and retail clients is branded search results. It’s often just taken for granted that you will be ranking for your branded keywords, so it’s assumed that non-branded search and first-time visitors is the main target. However, this isn’t always the case and it definitely shouldn’t just be assumed – these are almost certainly going to be your top converting keywords, so a small amount of effort here can easily pay off to ensure that you’re generating the majority of traffic – which let’s face it you deserve, it’s your product after all!
It’s amazing how many brands don’t rank for their own products though – check out these results for Sony W510 12MP which are dominated by Argos and Amazon:

Lack of static on-page content
Many websites struggle when it comes to having good, optimised content deeper in the site. For example, product pages which have very little descriptive text written about them could be much better optimised for search. See this example from Monsoon, which showcases the product reasonably well, but does little towards telling users and the search engines about it:

Pulling search results in as category pages
As above, sometimes category pages are very weak on content and often these are just search results which are being pulled into a page. Yes it may do a job for the user – but surely a bit more text here would help to give the search engines a bit more to go on. It doesn’t even have to be too detailed – a quick description underneath “Mens Hats, Gloves & Scarves” on the Debenhams site here would be a big improvement to optimise for the phrase “Mens Hats”, which they currently bid on using PPC, yet fail to rank in the top 50 positions in Google organically for:

Webpages & content too image-based
From the websites I’ve reviewed today, I’ve actually been quite impressed that most of these have now moved away from having content which is too image or flash-based. This is a clear SEO issue to avoid, as you want your site’s content to be as well optimised as possible – which means it should be text-rich. Topman is an example of a site which hasn’t quite got there yet – the only text currently on their homepage is navigational:

Duplicate content – same product, multiple categories
I’ve seen several retail sites in the past where they have caused duplicate content issues by having category-level subfolders within the product URL. Here’s one example from Blacks, where they have a product which is listed under two different categories, so they’ve ended up with two URLs for what is exactly the same product:


Because they sit under both categories, the URLs are duplicated – so ideally it’s normally best to avoid using category-level subfolders in product pages – see Amazon for an example of this. Also, canonical tags are there to help get around this issue if it exists – but ideally you’ll want to have each product page in a single location. Hope that makes sense, but Dan’s written a much more detailed post on product URLs causing duplicate content issues – so you should read that one if it doesn’t!
So those are the top SEO mistakes we’ve found retail websites are still making – a big thanks to Malcolm Slade, Rishi Lakhani, Paul Rogers, Stuart Turner, Ashley Hayward, Daniel Bianchini, Ian Galpin and Edwin Hayward who contributed via Twitter. And if you have any questions or comments on what you’ve found to be the biggest challenges, it would be great to hear about this in the comments.

3 Ways to Get More SEO Value from Your Social Profiles

Social media and SEO go hand-in-hand when it comes to building your online brand. The two disciplines are intertwined more than ever and the most successful websites are the ones who have managed to leverage social media for SEO and vice versa. No longer existing in separate silos, the lines between social media marketing and SEO are slowly disappearing.
In order to give your brand the best chance at succeeding in the online world, here are 3 ways you can derive SEO value from your time spent on social networking sites:
Link between profiles
Think of social media marketing like the wheel of a bicycle. Each social profile is one of the spokes and your website is the central hub linking them all together.
You never want the visitor’s journey to end at any given social profile. By interlinking your social profiles with each other, as well as with your website, you are encouraging visitors to extend their interaction  with your company and your brand. The longer you can keep them engaged the better chance you have of getting them to convert.
Linking between profiles also gives you the chance to connect with your target audience on more than one platform, increasing the amount of touch points your brand has in their online lives. For instance, if someone connects with you on LinkedIn, why not send them a message inviting them to follow you on Twitter and to Like your Facebook page? You don’t know which one of these social profiles plays the most important role in their online social lives, so by  creating a loop between all of your social profiles you are helping ensure your message gets heard at least once.
Keep in mind that the end goal of social media marketing should be getting your social connections over to your site, not driving traffic from your site towards your social profiles. Don’t dedicate prominent real estate on your website to giant “Connect with us on Facebook!” buttons. Your site should focus on converting your visitors, not turning them into fans/friends/followers. Keep the “connect with us” buttons on your site, but don’t let them overshadow the other goals of your site.
Promote your content
Content marketing forms the backbone of your SEO and drives most of your online marketing tactics in general. But creating great content is only half of the battle. It doesn’t matter how unique, informative, inspiring or useful your content is if no one sees it. That’s where social networks become incredibly valuable from a marketing perspective. Social media marketing thrives on fresh content and gives your social connections a reason to interact with your social profiles. It keeps your brand top-of-mind and present in their online social lives.
Every time you (or one of your connections/readers) share a piece of your content on a social network that creates a valuable inbound link for your site. Not just ways to drive traffic, these social signals are being used by the search engines to determine the importance of your content. The more times a piece of content is shared across various social networking sites the more valuable it becomes and the better it will rank in the long run.
You don’t have to publish the whole blog post to your Facebook wall either. A small snippet and image is enough to attract the attention of your network. It’s a teaser to get them interested and give them a reason to head over to your actual blog/site to read your content.
Customize and optimize profiles
Social profiles can rank in the search engines like any other webpage. Make sure you take full advantage of this opportunity and properly optimize your profiles like you would your site. For instance, Facebook allows users to create custom URLs for their pages; this is a great place to target your most relevant keywords. You should also focus on targeting relevant keywords in your biography or info sessions.
Not every profile will allow you to post the same amount of information, so it’s important to ensure consistency across your profiles. Before you start getting really heavily involved in your social media marketing, write a few company biographies of varying length that all focus on the same core message. You want to present a unified brand across all of your social profiles so you don’t accidentally confuse your audience.

Information Gives You the Power to Make Money

There is a saying that knowledge is power and power is money. This is a very accurate statement. If you can take the knowledge that you have now and go back in time just imagine what you could achieve. There would be no limits to your capabilities. Unfortunately we can't travel back in time yet as time machines have not yet been invented, but what we can so is to make it a very high priority to get knowledge.
To be successful in anything in life you have to create the urge to get more information about a certain topic. You have to read and study what you want to achieve. A good business opportunity should also enable you to learn and give you the knowledge to make a success.
Thanks to the information age the internet provides us with a lot of information. Although you should be careful as this source is too large to be regulated and therefore information on the internet is on not always accurate and reliable. But there are companies that provide free information and advice on their website that can help you to learn to be successful.
You should also try to study successful people who have made a success. Read their books and study their biographies. All this are sources of information. Spend time in business people's presence, ask questions and learn as much as you can.
A true entrepreneur will gather information wherever he/she goes, in all situations. Analyze everything and ask themselves the question over and over, how I can profit from this. Information is critical for success, if you have the right knowledge and business information you will have the know-how to make money and tons of it.
I challenge you today to get a source of information; this can be an entrepreneur website on the internet and start gathering as much information from them as possible. You are responsible for your own destiny and should take the responsibility to gather business information to help yourself grow and to enable you to get the knowledge to give you the power, to get you the money.
Good luck and remember to enjoy what you do and enjoy the knowledge that you gather. Once you start realizing how much certain business information is worth and how big the possibilities is with this information you will certainly enjoy it. You will also enjoy the money you are making with the information.

Hennie J Ferreira is the owner and founder of the IBD Group of companies.
IBD money specializes in business opportunities, training and publishes free advice and information on their website about money making opportunities. IBD money reviews and test opportunities and only recommend opportunities that is proven to make money. IBD Money is the on-line entrepreneur money making community and forms part of the IBD group of companies.

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A Good Business Opportunity Should Not Make Money But Let You Make Money

Business opportunities that promise you that you will make millions in a short period of time with no effort or work is a scam. There is no way of making a sustainable income that is legal in such a short period of time. If it sounds too good to be true then it most probably is. That doesn't mean that anything that sounds good is a scam, it has to sound brilliant, just be careful of an opportunity that promises you millions in a short time.
A good opportunity should be something that gives you training. You should be learning a new skill that will enable you to make money. This skill should be something that you know that is a legal and legitimate way of making money. Like for instance having a shop, you know that people are making money with this and if you can learn the skill then you can also make a success of this.
Another good thing to look at is if there is any support available. There are a lot of opportunities that are very complicated and then you get stuck without support. This won't help you much and will just be a waste of time and money. If the opportunity is so great then there must be a support system involved.
Nothing in life is free and therefore no business opportunity will be free either. You will have to spend some money on a good opportunity. If it is a good opportunity that will teach you a money-making skill then it is worth-while. Also ensure that if you pay, that you can quit the opportunity at any time and that you don't have to pay any money if you decide that this opportunity is no good.
Are there any other people who you have heard about that achieved success? If you read the testimonials and there are people who say that the program is great and that they are still in the beginning stages but on their way to success then this makes it more credible. But if all testimonials say that they are all millionaires and every body achieved this in a couple of days, then obviously this is not true.
A good business opportunity will need hard work and there will be effort put in from your side. If this is not the case you will not achieve success. Nothing comes easy in life. You will work before you can play. That is just life, but you can achieve a massive success if your are prepared to work hard.

Hennie J Ferreira is the owner and founder of the IBD Group of companies.
IBD money specializes in business opportunities, training and publishes free advice and information on their website about money making opportunities. IBD money reviews and test opportunities and only recommend opportunities that is proven to make money. IBD Money is the on-line entrepreneur money making community and forms part of the IBD group of companies.

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Make Real Money With a Good Opportunity

To make money and a lot of it is possible there are thousand of people who achieved a massive financial success and so can you. But then you should take action. Nothing frustrates me more than someone who always complains, but when you ask this person what he/she is doing about the situation, they have no answer to give. Complaining is easy but making a success is not that easy.
To make a real success is hard work. You will have to put a lot of effort in to create a financial success in your life. Yes there are people who inherit a lot of money and that did not have to work for it, but if that is not you then get use to it. If you want to change this then do it. You will see that self-made millionaires are also respected much more that someone who just inherited a lot of money.
Another thing that you will realize is, that there is not one single self-made millionaire on the Forbes list of the richest people in the world, that achieved financial success with no effort and in a very short time. They worked for it and it took some time. Some achieved it in a year or three. But not one achieved their wealth in a week.
If you are willing to take responsibility and put the necessary effort in then you can and will achieve success. There are great opportunities of making a lot of money that you can use to get going and make a success of your life. One of the greatest and easiest places to make a lot of money is on the internet. If you can make money on-line you have an unlimited market. There are over a billion people a day on the internet and the business possibilities are absolutely endless.
You can make a good passive income in the internet that will enable you to be financially free and let you enjoy life as you wish. It will take had work and some effort to get everything up and in place, but once that is done you can get a very sustainable passive income from the internet.
If you are serious about becoming financially free and making good money with a good opportunity, I would recommend to do a course or getting a well recommended opportunity to make money on-line. If you can learn how to use the internet to your advantage you can truly make an unlimited amount of money.
To make money is possible for everyone and there are great opportunities that will teach you and train you to make good money. Remember to make money you have to invest in yourself first with a good training opportunity to get the knowledge that is needed.
Good luck and I wish you a very successful journey.

Hennie J Ferreira is the owner and founder of the IBD Group of companies.
IBD money specializes in business opportunities, training and publishes free advice and information on their website about money making opportunities. IBD money reviews and test opportunities and only recommend opportunities that is proven to make money. IBD Money is the on-line entrepreneur money making community and forms part of the IBD group of companies.

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Gold Coins As An Investment

Gold is increasingly being considered a good investment option. Gold has been in high demand through time immemorial and its hold over the market has never waned. Gold jewelry is popular in many cultures both as an adornment and an investment. However, trends are changing worldwide as investors are beginning to realize the potential of investing in gold instead of bonds, mutual funds and other forms of savings. Investing in gold can in fact be more lucrative than purchasing property, as the returns are not just secure but also high. Investing in real estate can at times be risky as the market may fall owing to different reasons while with gold the chances of the prices falling are remote.
Advantages of Investing in Gold
24 carat gold coins are the purest form of gold sold in the market. The purity of these coins is approximately 99.99% and they have just a trace of other metals mixed in them for the purpose of minting. Gold coins can be purchased in different sizes and weights starting from 5 grams. Gold prices have steadily been rising in the global market and a gold coin purchased today can give good returns in as short a period as 6 months.
It is easy to resell gold coins as most jewelers will buy them at the prevailing market price. The need to look for a buyer, as one would have to when reselling property is not necessary while selling the coins. The resale price is determined by the bullion market and there is no way one could lose their investment spent in purchasing them.
Coins can be bought for the purpose of investment when the bullion prices are low. The smaller coins do not cost much and the rate of resale value of all coins is the same irrespective of their size. These coins are small and can easily be stored or hidden at home for safe keeping. Another alternative is to keep them in a bank locker.
Different Bullion Coins
Bullion coins are minted all over the world and are used for legally importing and exporting gold. The most popular bullion coins are the South African Krugerrands, American Eagles, Chinese Panda, Canadian Maple Leaf and the United Kingdom and Australian sovereigns.
Collecting Gold Coins
An investor must be careful while purchasing a gold coin as there are high chances of getting duped by a fake coin. Coins must always be bought from a reliable source. The coins are usually not sold loose; and they come in tamper proof packs with the name of the manufacturer printed on the pack and embossed on the coin. The exact purity of the coin is also mentioned on the pack along with the weight and code. One must look for these before purchasing the coin. While buying gold coins online check the credentials of the dealer and ask for relevant proof. All gold coins are the same and it is just a matter of taste if a buyer prefers to purchase the American Eagles, South African Krugerrands or Sovereigns.

Looking to buy or sell Gold Coins? Visit GoldCoinsExchange.com for the best deals on gold coins value!

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The Secret of Wealth in 2011

There is no one secret to wealth but rather the achievement to wealth creation lies in the combination of Strategy, Mindset, Application and Support.
Mindset
There has been so much hype focused around Mindset, Law of Attraction and Manifestation etc that I feel much of the real aspect to Mindset has been lost amid sales focused marketing and people capitalizing on the fears and misunderstandings of most people.
Recent breakthroughs in Neuroscience along with discoveries covering the psychology of the sub-conscious mind now allow a dramatically improved understanding of the power and importance of Mindset in any human endeavor.
Ironically these breakthroughs in understand have draw parallels to works published in the late 1950's by two pioneers of this science along with some specific ancient understanding now only being seen through the developments of Quantum science.
From this perspective alone the "Secret to Wealth" may not be a secret any long but rather a blueprint to follow step by step, no more complex or mystical than following a recipe for baking a cake.
Evidence of the success of the importance to mindset in the secret to wealth creation can be traced through such classics as 'Think and Grow Rich', As a Man Thinketh, The Science of Getting Rich and so on.
Strategy
Strategy is one aspect of the Secret to Wealth that most people think they have addressed when in-fact a closer look will reveal the opposite.
For many people embarking on the road to financial freedom the journey is provided a seemingly massive head start again through those on sales based marketing (basically people mainly with good intention but only wanting your money) primarily through seminars showing how through one very narrow and particular strategy they have "the" blueprint to wealth.
Without doubt many of these self proclaimed experts have achieved some level of success, usually after years in their niche (that you never hear about) resulting in a period of great reward in usually a short period of time, the 10 year overnight success.
The folly in this very popular so called strategy is that;
1. You approach this new venture with the exact same mindset that has created limited results in the past. Remember you must create change from the foundations up!
2. Strategy implies a chosen option in response to current market conditions, a choice that offer the greatest change of success or plays you're your strengths. These seminars act only on niches regardless of your personal conditions or the market conditions. A common call is that the wonder strategy will work for everyone in all conditions....when you really think about it... does that really seem plausible?
The reality is that the world, nations and regions follow the effects of varying market or economic conditions similar to the cycle of the seasons. To act without respect of this cycle is as fool hardy as to approach a winter's day as though it were summer.
The secret to wealth is realizing that you can prosper in any market condition only if you have and select the appropriate strategy that best suits the effects of your local, national and world economic conditions.
Application
The third element to the secret of wealth is application. Simply thinking about being rich or just having the best Mindset alone will achieve zero unless you apply what you think and believe.
Remember "Knowledge ids the application of Information", you don't know unless you try.
In all goal setting, momentum of some kind is crucial both for feedback and course correction. Without application, without movement or momentum of some kind you only have a theory of wealth creation.
There are many quotes and sayings that center around the theme that the greatest achievement or success lies in direct proportion to the risk or vulnerability you were prepared to be open to.
Application is you risking that you may be wrong.
Support
Support is the real fast track to success.
On your journey to discover the secret of wealth, the support of someone how has travel the road already is invaluable.
In so many examples perspective can so dramatically alter the meaning we draw from the information that we receive that options seemly impossible before now become reality. With this 'Support' is inter-linked with the feedback from application and the strategy we choose.
The irony to accepting and allowing the fact that there is no single secret to wealth but rather that wealth creation and financial freedom result more from the combination of key factors which include the combination of Strategy, Mindset, Application and Support.
Unfortunately we are so bias to prefer that there exists some mystical and as yet undiscovered Secret to Wealth that we are some vulnerable to the snake oil charmers and marketers of the current times that we spent billions of dollars every year on get rich schemes and wealth creation method that yield, on the whole, incredibly poor results for the majority how join.
The truth is that the secret of wealth require little more that a good plan which is acted upon and adhered to with ideally the support of a coach or mentor who has realized what you are seeking.
Not to sexy, but very dependable.
I wish you all the success in the world on your journey to the secret of success.

Author, presenter and founder of The Wealth Trilogies; Robert Thurston combines a unique blend of fundamental business and wealth creation strategies and experience with cutting edge science in the fields of human behavior, psychology and the physiology of success and change. With practical experience and a research background spanning over 14 years Robert has consulted to major corporations, small and medium business, start-ups and hundreds of individuals attaining wealth creation through property, trading, business and online strategies with remarkable results. In a career that has expanded through North America, Europe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Asia Robert combines real world experience with a unique perspective of what it take for people to become financially free.
http://thewealthtrilogies.com/

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Change Your Relationship With Money

Let's put the romantic notion about money aside, yes success is not about how much money you can accumulate, it is something specific and unique to each individual. However money does buy us a lot of the scarcest resource, namely time. If we are able to accumulate enough money, we are better able to free up time to spend with our families, learn more, assist more people to grow and expand, to travel and to see the world. So whether you love or hate money, you most certainly need it, to live a better quality of life, where you have time to do the things that matter to you.
What is your relationship with money? Do you have enough to satisfy your needs and those of your family, or are you trapped in a never ending cycle of debt and a shortage of income? Jim Rohn said it so well when he said, "Your net worth will seldom exceed your self-worth." As long as you continue to allow yourself to limit your self-belief and you maintain a picture in your mind that you are not worthy, especially on a subconscious level, you will continue to struggle to accumulate monetary wealth. The easiest way to fix your money problems and your relationship with money is to look at how you feel about money and more importantly how you feel about your own value. Do you see yourself as being worthy of accumulating great wealth or are you filled with self-doubt, where you undervalue yourself and constantly sabotage everything you do?
Your attitude about money and your mind-set about your own intrinsic value are the two factors that will determine whether you consistently draw money to yourself or whether you continue to repel it away from you. In a very simplistic fashion, the size of your monetary wealth or the size of your wallet is determined by the quality of your thoughts. If you do not value money and you continue to undervalue your own self-worth, you will remain trapped in a never ending cycle of lack and shortage.
Stop viewing money from a negative perspective and stop undervaluing your own self-worth. Examine your relationship with money by asking this simple, yet profound question. "I live in an era of unprecedented wealth and unlimited opportunity, where more people have become financially independent in the past 20 years than during any other time in history, Why haven't I"? Explore your answers and see what they reveal to you about your fears, doubts, excuses, rationalisations, limiting beliefs and justifications.
Armed with the awareness, that was revealed by how you answered the question above. It is now time to begin to reprogram your mind and to change your beliefs around money. If you are struggling to accumulate monetary wealth, I am certain that you have a subconscious negative belief about money. The beliefs you hold about money date back to your early childhood conditioning, where the people around you tried to rationalise their own lack of money, by telling you that people with money were manipulative, conniving or just simply bad. I am sure you have heard the phrase "Money is the root of all evil"
Nothing could be further from the truth, "Money is in fact the root of incredible Goodness" Look at all the good Bill Gates is currently doing around the world. He is building hospitals, shelters for the poor and assisting numerous charities around the world. Imagine all the good you could do if you saw money as a vehicle for doing good and helping people around you. The more money you have available to you, the more good you are able to do.
Make the shift today and start to see money for what it is, a vehicle that allows you to enjoy more time with the people you love, a way to have a better quality of life and a medium for helping as many people as possible. For you to get more money does not mean that someone else will have to have less, we live in an abundant universe, where money is granted to the creator, the person that built something where nothing existed before.
Commit to change your thoughts, feelings and actions around money, begin to see money for what it really is, merely a vehicle to use in the most productive fashion, to create abundance for yourself and everyone around you. This shift will allow you to stop sabotaging yourself and instead of constantly pushing money away from you, you will begin to attract more to you.
Change your attitude toward money and live in an abundant mind-set, where you see abundance all around. This positive mind-set changes the way you think, talk and act and stimulates your inner creativity. As you become more positive, ambitious and you have an abundant mind-set, you will get to associate with similar people. These likeminded people that will be attracted into your circle will obviously bring new opportunities and better circumstances into your life, which in turn will set you up to grow your wealth even further.
You can and will achieve great monetary wealth, if you are willing to change your thoughts around money and discover your true intrinsic value.
http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Hi my name is Andrew Horton; I am an inspirational Speaker, Master Teacher, Radio and TV Host, Global Traveler and Author. My area of focus is in the field of human behavior, expanded awareness and enlightenment. I travel the planet constantly researching, learning and seeking ways to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. I delve into the inner workings of the universe, always looking for ways to understand my role in making things better and contributing to the improvement of the human experience. Please visit my website to sign up for a daily inspirational message, by following this link Daily Inspirational Message. This is your daily call to action, a reminder to do things better each day. Visit my website at http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

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What Investment Will Exponentially Grow My Wealth?

The greatest investment you will ever make is an investment into your on-going personal development. No other investment will ever give you the same returns. As you consistently invest into your most important asset, namely your own self-development, the returns you will enjoy, go well beyond just gains in monetary wealth. You become a better person in every respect. You are better equipped to be a better spouse, friend, employee, entrepreneur, etc. and if directed properly even your health will improve.
Look at your life right now, are you investing at least 10 % of everything you earn each year, into your personal development? If you are not and you are not satisfied with the results you are enjoying, then I highly recommend that you look to introduce this crucial growth strategy, where you commit to spend a minimum of 10 % of your annual income, on improving yourself, into your life today.
My wife jokingly says, that I should deposit my salary into Amazon and that they should then send me a small cheque back each month, with whatever is left over, after I have paid for all the books, audio books and DVD's I buy every month. This commitment to on-going learning has seen my income grow by over 3000 % during the past 5 years. I do not believe that there is any investment vehicle out there, which has offered consistent returns like this.
The added advantage is that I have grown in every respect and I now see the world very differently, people that would not have given me a second glance a few years ago, actually go to great lengths to connect with me now, resources that were unavailable to me a few years ago, are far more accessible too, everything has changed for the better. No other investment could ever have given me this much meaning and contentment.
The level of success you get to enjoy is a mirror reflection of your self-identity and can never exceed your own self-development. Something this important deserves your full commitment and should be an integral part of your goals and planning for the future. Your level of personal development is like the gauge on a thermostat. As you continue to improve, and grow, you gradually move your personal thermostat to a higher and higher number. As this number increases, so too does your personal set point or the limit of what you are capable of achieving.
A thermostat that is set at 22 degrees Celsius will regulate the temperature in a room and will introduce cold or heat as needed, to ensure the temperature in the room remains constant. Your set point is exactly the same and is based on your level of personal development and the picture you have in your mind about your self-worth. No matter what happens in your environment, a financial windfall, and loss of weight on a strict diet or relationships seeming to go well, you will always return to your own set point, dictated by your level of personal development and self-worth.
Over 80 % of lottery winners in The USA, either loose, squander or are completely bankrupt within 18 months of their large windfall. How can this be possible, they were earning $ 30 000 a year before they won $ 10 000 000, how could they manage to blow all that money in such a short space of time. Simply put, they were thrust out of their comfort zone, into unchartered territory, where their level of financial worth far exceeded their inner self-worth and level of personal development. They simply adjusted their lives until they were back in sync with their own set points.
As you continually learn and grow and you keep improving your own set point, through your commitment to on-going personal development, everything in your life will improve. As Jim Rohn, so aptly said "If you want to have more, you must become more. For things to change, you have to change. For things to get better, you have to get better"
It is thus very clear that as you grow and become more:

• Your financial worth will increase.
• Your relationships will improve.
• You will connect with remarkable people.
• Your career or business will improve.
• Your health will improve.
• Every external factor will eventually mirror your growth in equal correlation.

Benjamin Franklin said it so well "If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest"
Stop looking at the cost of your personal development and start to see the worth or value that it adds to your life. Any investment that you make into personal development materials, coaches or seminars is essentially free. As you learn more, you eventually earn more and you become far more valuable than you would have remained, had you not invested into your personal growth. Look at your dreams and goals, does the investment you are making into your personal development match the size and scope of these goals and dreams? When it does, you will catapult yourself forward and all your dreams and fantasies will become reality.
http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Hi my name is Andrew Horton; I am an inspirational Speaker, Master Teacher, Radio and TV Host, Global Traveler and Author. My area of focus is in the field of human behavior, expanded awareness and enlightenment. I travel the planet constantly researching, learning and seeking ways to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. I delve into the inner workings of the universe, always looking for ways to understand my role in making things better and contributing to the improvement of the human experience. Please visit my website to sign up for a daily inspirational message, by following this link Daily Inspirational Message. This is your daily call to action, a reminder to do things better each day. Visit my website at http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

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Financial Planning - Risk Vs Reward

"Risk" is a term we hear so often, and yet not many of us really know what it means. Usually, we all think of "risk" as losing money because of a bad investment decision or the economy tanking, like we've all seen happen to our houses.
And sure, this type of risk is real, yet it is not the only type of "risk" that's out there, potentially waiting to hurt your security. Also, most of us have an understanding that usually, (but not always) the more "risk" you take, the higher the potential reward. You know, like investing in your brother-in-law's "can't miss" pay phone business, or going short on gold futures on margin. You might get killed, but if the deal works, you might get rich.
This rule is pretty solid, but is not always the case. For example, let's discuss the only risk you may be taking, that violates the rules of risk/reward. A risk, which is the most common risk we see people taking, and that offers a much greater chance of loss, without the equally greater chance of making money! What risk is this? The risk of NOT BEING DIVERSIFIED! Let's explain the simple concept of diversification. It is simply the concept of not putting all your eggs in one basket!
We know this sounds like a kindergarten lesson, but please bear with us.Even though being diversified sounds like a basic foundation of your investments, I will tell you that over 90% of the clients we see are so poorly diversified that they are at great risk!See, if you have most or all your money tied up in the company you work for, for example, you are at great risk! We see people all the time who work for a company, have all of their insurance benefits through the company, have their profit sharing plan from the company, and own a bunch of the company's stock both personally and in their 401(k) plan or whatever! Or, putting all of your money in the market as a whole. We still consider this as one investment, if that's all you have, even If you have many stocks in your portfolio. If your company or the market as a whole sucks wind, you are at great risk!
Does any of this mean more to you in light of the 2008, and 2011 stock market roller coasters? There is little if any potential reward for this family to keep their whole financial security tied up in this one company, or one type of investment.So many people are, taking all equally high potential of reward!
This lack of diversification can be the most deadly risk you can ever take!You must be realistic in your assessment of how you're diversified. You cannot think you're safely diversified if you have money in six different banks! While you've diversified amongst banks, you ARE NOT DIVERSIFIED AMONGST TYPES OF ASSETS!
See, true diversification consists of being diversified by the different types and forms of investments! For example, someone who has money split up between bank CD's, annuities, life insurance cash values, stocks, bonds, real estate, foreign instruments, etc., etc... is true diversification!
Let's look at an example of how splitting up your money into different asset types could add incredible safety!Let's say that some investor has $100,000 to invest, and one option was to put it into a relatively low risk, low yielding account, and in the other case, splitting it up into five $20,000 chunks.
And, let's assume that two of the five investments in the diversified option don't make any money, and the other three do as shown.Invest $100,000 @ 4% For 20 Years = $219,112 Compared To Diversifying Over 20 Years:
Invest # 1 - $20,000 @ Total Loss = 0
Invest # 2 - $20,000 @ 0% = $20,000
Invest # 3 - $20,000 @ 5% = $53,065
Invest # 4 $20,000 @ 10% = $134,550
Invest # 5 - $20,000 @ 12% = $192,926
TOTAL $400,541
Do you see how, even though one investment was a total loss, and one made nothing, this investor still made more money by diversifying! (NOTE- THIS IS AN EXAMPLE ONLY FOR ILLUSTRATION PURPOSES, AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE MAKING ANY PREDICTIONS OR PROJECTIONS. NO RETURNS ARE IMPLIED OR STATED.)
Now, I want to ask you some serious questions. Are you truly diversified? Do you really know? If not, you may want to have your whole portfolio and financial situation reviewed so you can maximize your potential and minimize your risk. Additional information is available to your at http://www.877Holmes8.com.

Harry Holmes has been a Financial Planner in the Inland Empire since 1990. He is an Enrolled Agent of the IRS, helping Mr. Holmes to create solid, tax consequence Wealth Building plans at all levels. Learn more about his practice at http://www.877Holmes8.com.

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Imagine a Time When No One But You Controls Your Financial Destiny

I believe that you have achieved financial independence when you no longer need to dance to anyone else's tune, unless you choose to. This is a stage you reach in your life where you get to choose what you do, when you do it and you are able to begin making a real difference in the lives of people around you. Is working toward living in a place like that, not worth the short term sacrifice and discipline required?
The first step to begin moving your life toward financial independence is to eliminate all debt from your life. Once you have created a plan to eliminate all debt from your life you must ensure that you never incur any personal debt on credit cards or loans, ever again. If you cannot afford to buy something, have the patience to build your wealth, until you can. Unfortunately, this instant popcorn, microwave society we live in and the easy access to credit makes, getting into debt so simple. Change your mind-set around consumption spending and stop allowing your need for instant gratification to dictate your choices.
Change the picture in your mind and instead of seeing yourself as someone that has all the trappings of success, built in the illusion of affordability. See yourself as a wealth creator, someone that builds financial wealth by investing and saving. This strategy will require you to make some short term sacrifices and forgo that instant gratification you have become so accustomed to expect. Creating financial wealth is about patience, consistency, persistence and planning.
I know this sounds tough, but desperate times call for desperate measures. If you have huge credit card debt or large personal loans, you must eliminate all unnecessary expenditure from your life, beyond your basic survival needs, until you have zero credit card debt. If you do not take these drastic measures and start to fight a battle you can win, your debt will continue to spiral out of control.
You must put yourself on a complete credit freeze. Explore every one of your current expenditures you have and slash everything as deeply as possible. You are effectively on a 100 % spending freeze. This spending freeze must remain in place until you have eliminated all your credit card debt. This is harsh, but unfortunately very necessary, until you have eliminated all your credit card debt. Spending is an addiction, the best way to eliminate debt, is to force yourself to go cold turkey.
Until you take control of your finances and start to make wiser choices, your financial position will just continue to get worse and worse. Five years is going to pass, you can make the choice today, to wrestle back control of your finances and be in a good place financially five years from now. Or you can maintain the status quo and the five years will pass any way, the only difference is that you will just be five years older, more wrinkled, more disillusioned and even further in debt.
Make a few new, better choices and start to direct your finances away from consumption spending, which gives you pleasure in the moment, toward creating wealth building goals. Consumption spending offers fleeting pleasure in the moment, which quickly dissipates. Wealth building offers you the opportunity to begin living a life with time and choice freedom. As you start to make better choices around your finances, within a relatively short space of time, you will see massive improvements and with persistence, you will achieve financial independence.
http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Hi my name is Andrew Horton; I am an inspirational Speaker, Master Teacher, Radio and TV Host, Global Traveler and Author. My area of focus is in the field of human behavior, expanded awareness and enlightenment. I travel the planet constantly researching, learning and seeking ways to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. I delve into the inner workings of the universe, always looking for ways to understand my role in making things better and contributing to the improvement of the human experience. Please visit my website to sign up for a daily inspirational message, by following this link Daily Inspirational Message. This is your daily call to action, a reminder to do things better each day. Visit my website at http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

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Horton
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