My Blogs and Articles How To Make Pay-Per-Click When Google created the pay-per-click (ppc) advertising program on their search engine with their Adwords program, the online marketing playing field had finally been leveled. For the first time, small businesses and individuals could compete with corporate giants for the attention of online consumers. In fact, the small website operators fared much better with their ability to get consumers to take action than the business behemoths. Yahoo! shows you the five current highest bids so that you always know who's paying what to be in that position. If you want to be higher, just bid more. Google does not show you the other bids, but they offer a table that gives you an expected page position based on the amount that you entered. Take the plunge and learn about the value of pay-per-click advertising, like with Google Adwords, or hire an expert and How Did the Game of Golf Really Begin? Recent evidence has been discovered that indicates yet another possibility for the origins of golf, but most experts agree with historical records that document where and how the modern game of organized golf really began. As with many sports around the world, their origins are not always clearly known and several theories usually abound about the subject, supported by certain evidence that is embraced by some and disputed by others. And so it is with the game of golf. Several theories, all supported by strong evidence, claim to be the true beginning of the game of golf. So how do we know which one to believe about where and how golf really began? To answer that question we first need to define the mechanics of the game and then determine when those mechanics created a standardized format and set of basic rules that are akin to what the game is today. The question should be, "How did the modern game of golf begin?" The origins of the game needs to be thought of in terms of when did the game of golf take on the semblance of what we have now. That is what really matters and that allows us to more accurately determine when golf began or any other sport for that matter. Most sports have accurate documentation as to their beginning. And that is when formal rules of the game and an organized series of competitions are established. With that in mind, the most supported evidence for the origins of golf point to Scotland in the 15th century, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews being one of the oldest and most famous golf courses. Stick and ball type games have been documented to have been around for centuries, but the playing with a ball and clubs through an 18 hole golf course within a boundary of rules and regulations had clearly originated in Scotland. The most recent new evidence suggesting golf's origin came in 2005 from discoveries of drawings and written records of a game played with 10 clubs and a ball that was hit into holes dug into the ground in China 500 years before the invention of golf in Scotland. Scholars believe that Mongolian traders exported the this game to Europe and then Scotland in the late Middle Ages. The Dutch also have a claim to the origins of golf with records depicting a golf-like game played with sticks and a leather ball that was hit into targets on the grass. The game was played with many participants on February 26, 1297 in the Netherlands and another record showed the same game being played there in the 17th century. There are also recordings of a game with sticks and balls in continental Europe in these early days. Without much argument it can be stated that the modern game of golf originated in Scotland. The first permanent golf courses were designed and located in Scotland, the first golf memberships in clubs was established in Scotland, and the first golf tournaments among cities and towns were held in Scotland. The origin of the name 'golf' is still a mystery, however, and we may never know how this name came about, although several theories exist, but none can be substantiated. So, hats off to the Scottish golf pioneers who created a game that can be played at any age by anyone and maybe even in the PGA or The U.S. Open. Golf started as a popular game and has now grown all over the world as it has spread among enthusiasts of all walks of life. The only things left to ponder are the introduction of golf bags and hand golf carts and then motorized golf carts. One wonders if the Scottish are also the inventors of these golf accessories. How To Keep In Shape Over 50 The Fun Way There are more appealing and effective ways than the gym or If you are over fifty years old, how do you stay in shape? Or do you? Do you go to the gym regularly, even though you have to force yourself to go and look for excuses not too? Is exercise a pleasure or a drag for you? Yes, we all know that it is necessary to keep our bodies and minds in good physical condition, but do you do it because you have to or because you really want to for the enjoyment of it? The Key To Fishing For And Catching Trout From A Lakeshore Are You Giving Your Home Insurance Company Find out why insurance companies, law enforcement officials and attorneys The flooding started in their home long before news reports hit the airways with evacuation warnings. Vincent and Lorraine Davis had been frantically trying to gather as many of their valuables as they could, but the wall of rising and rushing water came quickly and they barely got out in time with just an armful of clothes and a purse. In the aftermath of the storm, the Davis’s returned to their home to find total devastation. The force of the overflowing river had literally pushed their home partially off its foundation and collapsed it into a heap of splintered lumber. There was nothing left of their personal possessions to salvage, although they had hoped otherwise. Vincent and Lorraine had lost everything and they couldn’t believe it had happened to them. When the Davis’s submitted their claim for the personal property in their home that had been destroyed in the flood, they received another shock. Their insurance claim for Lorraine’s jewelry and Vincent’s Renaissance art collection, among other valuables, was denied by their insurance carrier and they received only minor compensation based on some insurance formula. The reason given by the insurance company: lack of documentation of the description and value of the items claimed. There was nothing that the Davis’s could do but face the ugly fact that they would not get enough money from their insurance policy to replace any of their most precious possessions. The sad thing is that this scenario is not unusual. Every year, too many homeowners who have been hit by catastrophe and lose their personal property are denied compensation by their insurance company because of inadequate documentation. Without a full accounting of the personal items claimed and proof of their value after loss by fire, flood, burglary or other disaster, your claim will most likely be turned down and you will be out of luck. Fortunately, should disaster strike you, you can protect your valuable personal possessions easily and reasonably cheaply. If Vincent and Lorraine had created an inventory of all their valuable possessions in their home prior to the flood, they would most likely have received the maximum reimbursement for everything that they lost. A home inventory is the answer to ensuring that your personal property claim is honored by your insurance company and that you get full compensation for your losses. Home inventories are simple enough for the average homeowner to compile. However, there are certain formats and procedures that need to be adhered to in order to meet certain insurance guidelines. If records of your personal property are not detailed and corroborated correctly, you may still lose out. The answer is to hire a professional home inventory service provider. These companies and individuals use the latest technology to record, photograph, document, catalogue, and store your personal property inventory. They understand and adhere to the formats required by insurance companies and the courts in order to be considered and honored. No one ever expects a catastrophe to strike and destroy their personal belongings and valuables, but statistics are too stark to ignore. When a house fire occurs every single minute and a burglary occurs every ten seconds and floods cause billions of dollars in damage every year in the U.S., no one is safe from Nature’s wrath or a burglary. Don’t take a chance with your treasured items. Get a professional home inventory now and put worry behind you.
Below are some of my original writings that are available for reprinting
Advertising Work For You
You can reap great rewards with
this online advertising strategy
There is, however, a grave danger to jumping blindly into the ppc waters. To make the pay-per-click concept work, there are a number of systematic steps and strategies that must be employed to be successful. Without a carefully planned ppc marketing strategy, you can break the bank in the blink of an eye. How do you think I know that? I learned the hard way.
There is quite a bit involved in using ppc to generate revenues, but it is a simple, systematic process that works. It isn't easy, but it is simple once you know how it all works. I have outlined below the key areas that need to be perfected in order for pay-per-click advertising to work at it's optimum, especially with Google Adwords.
Keywords are key:
Your starting point involves using the right keywords. You need to determine what keywords your prospects or customers would type into a search engine to find your product or service. There are free online services that will provide you with a list of all the words and phrases people type to find what they are looking for. Google has a terrific Keyword Generator tool that will do the trick for you.
Once you have identified the keywords you are going to use (make sure that these words and phrases appear throughout your website pages), group them into like categories. Then you go to the search engines and sign-up for a ppc account.
Pay-Per-Click bidding is tricky:
Bidding on your keywords is critically important and will take some experimentation, monitoring, and time to perfect. The search engines offer a suggested bid price for each keyword phrase, but you don't have to accept it. Just pick the daily budget that you can afford for now and an affordable bid amount to test the waters.
Test your ads regularly:
One great feature of the search engines' pay-per-click programs is the ability to run more than one ad. Google, for instance, with their Adwords program, will alternately run two or more ads concurrently. This allows you to test different ads and track their performance over a specified period. The poor performing ad or ads can then be replaced with new ads. This way you always have your best foot forward and enjoy better results from your advertising dollars.
Track your results:
In order to determine which of your keywords people are clicking on and what ads are performing, you need to track the actions taking place behind the scenes. The search engines have tracking options for you that allow you to monitor keyword performance.
Taking these four areas into consideration as the backbone of prudent pay-per-click advertising planning, you can enjoy a highly profitable revenue stream where your return on investment can exceed anything that you have experienced before with your business or profession. Taking one step at a time through this systematic process will almost guarantee your success in online marketing.
Do remember, however, that your successful pay-per-click advertising campaign is only going to be a money pit if your website cannot get your visitors to take the action that you want them to, be it to fill out a form or to make a sale. A website that keeps visitors and lets them find what they are looking for easily is the second part of the equation for a fruitful online marketing strategy. If your website doesn't do that, you are wasting all your pay-per-click advertising money. Your ppc success is useless if your website doesn't do it's job.
get your website out in front of the millions of people and companies looking for your products or services online. It will be money and time well-spent. How do you think I know that?
jogging path to keeping fit once you reach your fifties and beyond.
It seems that most adults in their later years exercise begrudgingly and only because it is good for their health and that it will help them live longer and better. Without that small fact, most of us would probably choose to relax in a comfortable chair rather than pumping iron at the gym.
Exercise is too much work and it is boring. Over time it becomes difficult to maintain any dedicated regularity to vigorous physical exertion and the activity becomes less frequent and less intense. We begin to rationalize our decreasing activities by believing that we are in good shape and only need to tone-up once in a while to maintain the status quo. And so we reduce our physical exertion and find ways to avoid the gym.
There are some of us older folks, however, who have found enjoyable ways to stay healthy and who actually look forward to times of physical and mental exertion. These people have dedicated themselves to an activity or set of activities that provide them with the physical exercise that their bodies need, while also providing fun and mental stimulation that keeps them happy. What are these activities that can have such a dramatic effect? Sports. Yes, sports are what motivates many seniors to get exercise because it is so much fun to do. Participating in a sport is a great way to stay healthy while enjoying the process. The key to getting enough exercise is getting motivated and sports provide that motivation.
You are probably thinking that people over fifty shouldn’t play sports for fear of injury or some other geriatric shortcoming, but that is not the case with those of us over fifty, sixty, seventy, and, yes, even eighty. When men and women within a certain senior age range participate in a sports activity together without younger participants, the incidence of injury is actually very low as determined from years of participating in senior sports and from talking with others across the country.
There are so many sports that the over fifty crowd can participate in for health benefits that fit any physical limitations that someone might have as a result of age. Some older folks play soccer every Sunday for ninety minutes, which keeps them in pretty good shape. But many people are not suited for strenuous sports like soccer or hockey, for instance. The key is to choose a sport that is right for you. Whether it is golf or basketball or fishing, the important thing is to get out there and play a sport and be active.
Whatever sport you enjoyed in your youth can also be played in your later years. Why not try a new sport like tennis or softball if you have not played them before? No matter what the sport is, the important thing is to choose one that you enjoy playing and that you will get up for no matter the weather or how you feel. And for every sport there is an organized league for all ages, including those over fifty. Most cities have soccer, softball, hockey, and other leagues for the over fifty crowd that you can join or start one if there is none in the sport that you want to play.
The key is to find the sport you enjoy and just do it. Your involvement with an active sport will bring you great pleasure and keep you healthy both physically and mentally. So, get on a team and play like there was no tomorrow. You’ll live longer and enjoy yourself more.
With certain techniques, casting for trout from
the shore of a lake can result in a good day’s catch
The thrill of catching a trout from a shoreline and fighting him into exhaustion is never-tiring. A trout seems to fight harder and longer as he is brought closer to shore than in the open water. And there is always that last thrusting effort before submission ensues. Whether it is by fly fishing or casting a lure with a spinning rod, fishing from shore can yield a creel full.
Although some fishermen feel that fishing from shore is not as productive as in a boat nor as exciting, fishing from the shores of a lake can produce great results for those who know what they are doing. There are a number of key factors to catching a good number of trout by casting from shore.
The ability to cast a lure far out into the water is a significant consideration for getting your fishing lure noticed. Although many trout come close to shore while the water is cold, the lunkers are stay a bit further out, beyond most casting techniques.
One of the keys to getting the furthest cast possible is to use a heavy lure. A good-weighted lure will fly further than most lures on sale today. The weight of the lure will depend upon the strength of the fishing line. The heavier the lure for the given fishing line rating the better.
The fishing line is the other factor in getting a long cast. It is best to use the lightest fishing line possible for the weight class of the trout being fished for. There is also the line-snap factor when casting a heavy lure. If the cast is not perfect, the heavy fishing lure is likely to snap the line as it flies faster than the line can keep up.
It is also key to find the right spot to fish from shore. The ability to read a lake’s shoreline becomes very beneficial. If access is available to work along a good stretch of lake shoreline, the prospect of catching fish is improved. Moving down a shoreline while casting allows you to cover a lot of ground and you can work your way back up when you get to the end.
The technique to use when fishing from shore is to cast out in the form of a fan. Start your casts to your left and stagger each cast towards your right in an arc like opening a fan until your casts end up to your right. If you were catching trout, reverse the order of your casts from right to left.
If you have not been catching fish after one complete casting arc from left to right, move down the shoreline of the lake twice the distance of the arc distance of your casts. Do this until you catch fish.
And make sure to give your lure some action. A bright lure is best for most visibility. Give the tip of your rod a good twitch every couple of reeling cycles. The right speed is necessary to get the right action out of the lure. Too fast will make it spin and repel trout. Too slow will not make the lure act appropriately and fish leave it alone. As you reel in, just a short, quick twitch of your rod will give the action to your fishing lure that will make it most effective.
The time of day or night also comes into play when fishing from shore. As with most freshwater fishing, the early morning and evening into dark are the best time to catch trout and most fish. And so it is true with lake fishing from shore. To have to most luck, these times are the best bet for catching fish because that is when they feed the most and are the most active.
When fishing from shore, however, these times are extended as some trout venture into shallower waters for a late morning or afternoon snack of bait fish that are eating along the shoreline. And when the weather is cloudy, fish will come closer to shore.
If you have not fished from shore because you thought of poor results and too much work or you have fished from a lake shore, but you had little luck, try the methods outlined above and see if that doesn’t work for you. If there are fish within casting distance and they are hungry or very active, you will catch trout, assuming you are using the right lure.
If you don’t catch fish with these strategies, the fish are either not biting or there are no fish there. Then it’s time to move on or call it a day when the casting arm gives out. Some things you can control to determine a fishing day’s outcome like what we have discussed here and some things you cannot like the weather and the whims of the fish.
But no matter what the outcome of a fishing outing, there is always another day. Fish have to eat.
The Reasons They Need To Deny Your Claim?
recommend a home inventory for protecting the value of your personal property.
Are China and India Weakening the Global Supply Chain for Metal Products?
These two exploding economies have been quietly grabbing valuable
global sources of copper and steel products to fuel their rapid growth
and leaving uncertainty for the future of metals availability and prices
With a combined population of 2.5 billion people, China and India are becoming formidable consumers of the world's resources. Since the 1990's, both countries have experienced unprecedented growth and they have been gobbling up supplies of raw materials to support the needs of their citizens and the building of their infrastructure.
With an abundance of capital available, both China and
As
China has been aggressive in securing reliable sources for copper and other metals, along with India, and this is may likely cause greater demand that will begin to outstrip supply. As we all know, this drives up prices while at the same time thinning availability of crucial materials. We have to wonder how this will affect world markets. How long can these countries sustain their growth and, hence, their demand for copper, aluminum and steel?
Recent news stories and commentary claim that both China and
When one analyzes the current slowing growth of both nations, it seems more like a cyclical phenomenon than a sustaining one. Factors such as domestic inflation, severe weather, devastating earthquakes, and the weakening global economy in the first half of this year have pushed the economies of both countries closer to decline, but far from crashing. Indexes for the most recent quarter show signs of an upward swing already. China and
It is hard to tell how long India and China will continue to import raw materials at current and recent levels, but one thing is for sure, their populations are growing rapidly, their people are getting more educated and restless, and their demand for copper, steel, and oil will impact the price and availability of these commodities down to the local machine shop. We need to prepare and to adjust to ensure that we are able to get the copper, steel, aluminum, and oil that we need to support our manufacturing base right here in the United States.
A recent example from a newsletter that I write periodically called, “The Insider Real Estate Letters”:
Record Foreclosures Turn The American Dream
Into A Nightmare For Many Home Owners
Forcing home prices to further decline in many neighborhoods,
foreclosures continue to wreak havoc on home owners’ equity.
Foreclosures continue to dampen any hopes of a bottom to the housing crisis as the latest figures show that twelve percent of home owners who have a mortgage on their homes are either late with their monthly payments or are already in the foreclosure process. That is one in eight homes. From all indications and our research, we do not expect to see any relief until next year sometime.
Much of the foreclosure problems do not stem from home owners who bought homes for prices above their means. Many foreclosures involve home owners with high credit scores who were gainfully employed and had kept up with their payments, but then lost their jobs. It is the high level of layoffs that have left some home owners, with normally good credit, with the inability to continue to make their mortgage payments. April’s unemployment figures are at a 25-year high. This is what is really sad. No one seems to be immune to the overall economic impact that is putting many people in dire straits. The American Dream has turned into a nightmare for too many people.
It is important to note that about 46% of new foreclosures are located in only four states: California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada where the prices of homes skyrocketed in the boom years. But the high foreclosure rate has spread to most other states as job losses take their toll. The high number of layoffs make it difficult for mortgage lenders to even try to modify loans for these home owners because unemployment insurance does not pay enough for people to continue to make mortgage payments even with restructured loans.
How about short sales? Can they help to alleviate the foreclosure mess? Yes, they would help a lot if banks would only be more aggressive in accepting them in lieu of foreclosing. A short sale is when the money owed on a mortgage is more than what the home will sell for in today’s market. A short sale occurs when the mortgage lender accepts a purchase offer on a home that is less than what is owed on the mortgage. From our calculations it seems that a short sale makes more sense to banks than going through a costly foreclosure proceeding and holding the inventory. But then again, banks and other lenders do not always make sense with their policies and procedures.
But isn’t President Obama’s loan modification and refinancing plan going to address these problems and keep people in their homes?, you may ask. We had all hoped so, but it is not happening as is obvious as things worsen. From our perspective, his plan will not cause the number of foreclosures to fall. In our estimation, the best we can hope for is that the numbers do not rise further. But until the unemployment problem is solved, the number of foreclosures will continue to burden the housing market and delay a return to normalcy until late next year if we are lucky. We can’t rely on the government to solve these problems. The market will correct on its own as it has for a hundred years. Our lawmakers only exacerbate the problems with ill-conceived solutions that only sound good to the public, but have little positive impact on our individual lives.
Although it is difficult to guess what may happen next, we expect the Fed to take measures to keep the interest rate historically low. This is just another fly in the ointment that is preventing more potential home buyers from entering the market.
But there may be a glimmer of hope that could indicate a trend that may ease us out of this housing mess. The Outer Banks of North Carolina has some historic significance in predicting the direction of the housing market in the rest of the country. In the past, real estate activity has taken shape in The Outer Banks and the rest of the country followed suit. The housing market there felt the downturn over a year before anywhere else. Because it is a resort area, people stopped buying 2nd homes and investors stopped investing 1 to 2 years before other areas of the country.
There is now a trend in The Outer Banks that bodes well. Vacation home buyers and investors have returned and they are buying homes. We are not talking blockbuster sales, but it is a good sign that the housing market there is bottoming out and may swing back over the next six months or so. And if history stays true to the area’s past, the national housing market and economy are right behind. We shall see.
Till Next Time,
Bernie Rosellen
Your “Insider Real Estate Letters” Editor
