AVOID DEBT LIKE A PLAGUE

Young men starting in life should avoid running into debt. That’s a given. There is scarcely anything else that drags a person down like debt. It is a slavish position to get ill, yet we find many a young man, hardly out of his “teens,” running in debt (and yes, this has been going on for centuries as long as men and history could remember). He meets a chum and says, “Look at this: I have got trusted for a new suit of clothes.” He seems to look upon the clothes as so much given to him; well, it frequently is so, but, if he succeeds in paying and then gets trusted again, he is adopting a habit which will keep him in poverty through life. Debt robs a man of his self-respect, and makes him almost despise himself.

Grunting and groaning and working for what he has eaten up or worn out, and now when he is called upon to pay up, he has nothing to show for his money; this is properly termed “working for a dead horse.” I do not speak of merchants buying and selling on credit, or of those who buy on credit in order to turn the purchase to a profit.

Money is in some respects like fire; it is a very excellent servant but a terrible master. When you have it mastering you; when interest is constantly piling up against you, it will keep you down in the worst kind of slavery. But let money work for you, and you have the most devoted servant in the world. It is no “eye-servant.” There is nothing animate or inanimate that will work so faithfully as money when placed at interest, well secured. It works night and day, and in wet or dry weather.

So do not let it work against you; if you do there is no chance for success in life so far as money is concerned.

Choosing a SEO Company

A Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluable asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize in knowing how to raise your Search Engine positions, monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and adjusting their strategies to account for undesirable results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of time, effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best interest to go to an outside source rather than try to maintain high Search Engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective Search Engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering the approach they employ to raise your Search Engine positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These techniques violate most Search Engine policy, and in the worst case scenario, will only get your website severely penalized, if not removed entirely from a Search Engine's index.

A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is coded to detect a Search Engine spider and divert them to this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost your Search Engine position. Doorway or bridge pages utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely different server. Google, the largest and most important Search Engine on the Internet, will remove your website from their index if they detect you have cloaked pages. So never, never employ any company that uses this technique!

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company you hire will not work with your competitors while they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the effectiveness of the Search Engine optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will use the success they achieve for your website to sell their services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to check out is the company's track record of results. However, don't take the company's word for it. They will undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify their answers.

Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results on. The ones that are important are the most popular engines, and these are the ones you want to see good results on. Since the popularity of Search Engines can change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch.

You can access this at

http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451

Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming great results with. It's easy to get high rankings with unpopular words. For instance, the keyword "cat leashes" will get high popularity ranking because no one else would think of using it. What you are looking for is good results using popular keywords.

Check out the software Wordtracker, available at http://www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based on actual Search Engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to see a wide range of positions over a number of different Search Engines using different keywords or phrases for the entire site. Request a report for any client the company claims to have done well for. This report should show good positions on a number of the most popular Search Engines for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out Search Engine optimization companies, make sure they have actually done the work they are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other company's results in order to get you to sign on with them. If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you results for, and ask for the name of their Search Engine optimization company.

It's important to keep in mind that a successful Search Engine optimization campaign will result in maximum exposure across a wide range of popular Search Engines using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the Search Engine optimization company you are considering for a report that shows you rankings across a number of popular Search Engines for a period of at least six months. Remember: Search Engine marketing is a process that is continual, and you need a company that not only understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your Search Engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust its strategy in the event that Search Engine rankings drop.

Since Search Engine marketing is an on-going process, your positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your Search Engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that this report should show rankings for the most popular Search Engines. Don't be impressed by a report that only shows great results for a limited number of small Search Engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also confirm that the popular Search Engine results they are showing you are indeed the popular Search Engines currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a format that you can easily understand. For example, it could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at least six months and presents data such as the top 50 positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are considering actually monitors these positions or pages every month, and that the sample report they show you includes findings and recommendations for the specific site. This insures that the company will actively monitor and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You need a company that is actively participant in your Search Engine marketing campaign, not just an information gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of company, but bear in mind that a Search Engine optimization company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign. It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your website, you might consider waiting until you do have the finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can't wait for your finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that there are risks involved with using a company without a proven track record - and that risk is your money! Don't take that leap unless the company can supply you with a least a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good company. Don't use a company that won't show your references because of any reason, confidentiality included. Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firm you choose should provide you with a minimum of two references, one that is from the past, and one that is current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the company, such as their availability to answer questions and deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask the reference to rate the overall performance of the company.

Find out if the company requested that the reference make significant changes to their web pages that affected the visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a Search Engine optimization company that can balance the needs of both Search Engines and site visitors without compromising either.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work of the Search Engine optimization company resulted in higher profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn't matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or not.

Search Engines and How They Work

Search Engines are special sites on the Web that are designed to help people find information stored on other sites. There are differences in the ways various Search Engines work, but they all perform three basic tasks:

ü They search the Internet - or select pieces of the Internet - based on important words,

ü They keep an index of the words they find, and where they find them, and

ü They allow users to look for words or combinations of words found in that index.

Early Search Engines held an index of a few hundred thousand pages and documents, and received maybe one or two thousand inquiries each day. Today, a top Search Engine will index hundreds of millions of pages, and respond to tens of millions of queries per day.

Before a Search Engine can tell you where a file or document is, it must be found. To find information on the hundreds of millions of Web pages that exist, a Search Engine employs special software robots, called spiders, to build lists of the words found on Web sites.

When a spider is building its lists, the process is called web crawling.

In order to build and maintain a useful list of words, a Search Engine's spiders have to look at a lot of pages. How does any spider start its travels over the Web? The usual starting points are lists of heavily used servers and very popular pages. The spider will begin with a popular site, indexing the words on its pages and following every link found within the site. In this way, the spidering system quickly begins to travel, spreading out across the most widely used portions of the Web.

Once the spiders have completed the task of finding information on Web pages, the Search Engine must store the information in a way that makes it useful. There are two key components involved in making the gathered data accessible to users:

ü The information stored with the data, and

ü The method by which the information is indexed.

In the simplest case, a Search Engine could just store the word and the URL where it was found. In reality, this would make for an engine of limited use, since there would be no way of telling whether the word was used in an important or a trivial way on the page, whether the word was used once or many times or whether the page contained links to other pages containing the word. In other words, there would be no way of building the ranking list that tries to present the most useful pages at the top of the list of search results.

To make for more useful results, most Search Engines store more than just the word and URL. A Search Engine might store the number of times that the word appears on a page. The engine might assign a weight to each entry, with increasing values assigned to words as they appear near the top of the document, in sub-headings, in links, in the META tags or in the title of the page. Each commercial Search Engine has a different formula for assigning weight to the words in its index. This is one of the reasons that a search for the same word on different Search Engines will produce different lists, with the pages presented in different orders.

An index has a single purpose: it allows information to be found as quickly as possible. There are quite a few ways for an index to be built, but one of the most effective ways is to build a hash table. In hashing, a formula is applied to attach a numerical value to each word.

The formula is designed to evenly distribute the entries across a predetermined number of divisions. This numerical distribution is different from the distribution of words across the alphabet, and that is the key to a hash table's effectiveness.

When a person requests a search on a keyword or phrase, the Search Engine software searches the index for relevant information. The software then provides a report back to the searcher with the most relevant web pages listed first.

The Ladder to Success Part III

Very strong willpower is needed in order to develop internally, and the need for two most important attributes, namely courage and confidence are essential ingredients. Thus poverty and prosperity does not necessarily depend on knowledge wholly (e.g. business acumen, marketing strategies and so on) but it certainly depends on the three C’s and they are character, creativity and your innate capabilities.

Courage and confidence alone can bring about unique transformation while the opposite will only bring much sorrow and despair in times of distress and crisis. However, despite life’s problems we should resist obstacles and hindrances and as such constantly remind ourselves of the supreme inherent or innate power which we all posses and which we can all successfully develop through spiritual insight. Thus ignoring our abilities and potential for developing the personal power that we need for going through ego-breaking experiences requires immense fortitude and discipline, and I explain to you in this book on how you could achieve all this here and now.

Without these qualities you are destined to fail, and that is the reason why a large portion of people feel despondent because they got into competition or they simply gave up under pressure, through lack of self-courage and dynamic willpower.

When our fantasies and expectations are not fulfilled, there is a tendency for us to revert to our old ways – the hollowness we experience can be most annoying and we cannot ignore it forever. A lot of the time what exactly happens is that whatever good we undertake in life, it does not mean we will continue. This is not because an impossible discipline is required but because we lack courage and confidence we are overwhelmed with negative attitude – this is what stops everything in its tracks!

The initial burst of enthusiasm begins to fade, and what seemed so wonderful becomes a peril a dilemma and a problem. The mind takes over and questions surmount raising doubts after doubts whether the whole idea or concept is worthwhile – a conflict ensues, the mind says the one thing and the intellect and our intuition urges us to follow the path to ‘success’.

Even before we begin the journey the end is imminent, because we are undecided what true path to follow. Success lies in what you make of it not what you ‘think’ it ought to be (do not fantasize success).

The Ladder to Success Part II

You may want to add various different types of themes to your art portfolio in order to maximize your capabilities to reach an audience far and wide with interests in different themes/subjects.

Contact groups, forums and even Internet newsgroups and explore various other avenues (such as photographers, photo and framing galleries, arts councils and government organizations that provide help including loans etc.) that will allow you to step up your enquiry – the idea is to pursue the goal relentlessly and with a positive attitude.

As far as your theme/subject matter is concerned post questions, polls, surveys, and determines what people are looking for, and then simply find the need and fill it.

Every little will help, but it is the force required to get the momentum going and that is the key point. Another useful point is not to just try, try and to continue trying – instead develop an attitude whereby you DO the thing you have decided to pursue, implement and apply the strategies shown in this book.

Finally do not just stop at that – keep faith and do not yield to any defeat. Once you have decided to put the ‘plan’ into action, make sure that it is kept ignited and glowing…rejections and disappointments should in no way curtail your hope, progress and your desire to success. People who have succeeded despite all the hardship, pain and struggle have inspired countless millions around the world – it is time you too set an example for others to follow in your footsteps.

You must remember that the methods employed by different individuals in procuring wealth may be distinct, but the goal is common to all, and the steps spoken of earlier are in effect your tools to your overall success.

The Ladder to Success Part I

It is the privilege of man to achieve all round greatness, and in reality success should be one’s habit. Man is essentially perfect, and therefore infinite are the possibilities that lie dormant in him.

In order to bring out the very best from within, a life organized and perfectly disciplined for the discovery of the potentialities that lie lurking within us, is a life well spent.

The vital point is not how many talents each on of us has, but the importance should be focused on how much of our existing talents, attributes and capabilities are we prepared to develop, exploit, explore and implement in our daily lives.

The question you must ask, is whether you are making a practical use of at least one great talent lying inherent within you? The one supreme fundamental principal is to understand that all our success entirely depends upon ourselves.

The best way to be happy is to do the things that you naturally love and enjoy doing – something that you are absolutely passionate about! Likewise the best way to succeed and become wealthy is to see to it that you achieve the things you have earnestly desired to seek in life. This will require that you implement your efforts in to activities that will allow you to measure success.

For instance the simple way to explain this is to take into consideration the following example: if you take a liking for art, painting, and drawing then the way to proceed is to seek guidance on ways to enter competitions, and ways to submit your artwork via galleries (approach galleries directly and leave work on a sale or return basis) or fine art publishers’ or even exposing your talent by entering seasonal fairs where you will find a large gathering of all kinds of retailers.

Pursuing Wealth

The statement ‘haste makes waste’ stands true even today, and more often than not, some of us tend to feel frustrated when we cannot live up to our ideals and the standards we set for ourselves all the time.

On other occasions, we may feel that had we taken the challenge that came our way that perhaps things may well have changed for the better, yet there is also the possibility that in our over anxiety to reach the goal we try too hard and burn ourselves out entirely!

Has This Happened to You?

The question that now remains to be asked how do we begin, how can we achieve success in life?

Well, my friend, rest assured that this book has been written to answer this question satisfactorily, eliminating confusion or anomalies whatsoever.

There are many strategies that one can employ and various means through which you can plough yourself to achieving the goal. One common thread in all of them is self-belief, self-righteousness or honesty and ethical living (in words, deeds, thoughts and actions) pertaining to your lifestyle – this is Step four.

In any business the emphasis on moral and ethical standards ranks the highest, and this should not be ignored or overlooked.

The only way to achieve equanimity, balance or equilibrium even after you become the wealthiest individual is to have your sense of realizing the true essence of life.

Nothing in life is constant. Life is ever changing and things that seem to have existence today may cease to exist tomorrow and this is a fact that you – and everyone else – must learn to accept.

Step five, when you discover something profound and beautiful, the natural tendency is to share it with others.

It Can Never Happen?

While pessimism warns us of dangers lurking before our very own eyes, optimism may propel us into false security. Pessimism should only be considered initial and not a final predicament in any situation – this is the first step to success.

Time and again, we have been subjected to instances that are disturbing, and deep within us we ‘realize’ the potential dangers and risks surrounding us, and the ‘voice’ within adamantly rejects this threatening situation confronting us, as such because we fail to recognize this ‘voice’ within us our mental clinging to the outer world detaches us from the inner voice of ‘TRUTH’ thereby throwing us totally of the tracks as it were.

The second step to success and wealth is to convince yourself of the importance of self-control, self awareness and self-discipline.

We must listen to the voice within and realize the existence of the innate force or the Dynamic Willpower – the mighty power expressing through the mind, body and the intellect! Thus the second step qualifies that you develop faith in not just what you can do and achieve but most importantly developing faith in yourself (your innate, inherent and latent qualities).

Step three requires that through constant vigilance, employing the power of intelligence, self analysis and introspection and through careful understanding and use of these concepts, you can learn to live beyond the demands of the mind in whatever environment you find yourself – this will qualify you to implement and embrace the road to wealth.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you hate to put in any work/effort but love to attain success, you will have to reconsider your views.

So to achieve the latter, you have to do the former and the sensible idea is to find out what really gives us pleasure and then find out if it is possible to make money from doing it.

The 5 Principles to Unlocking Wealth

These principles are a key to unlocking amazing cache of wealth, abundance and success. They are all centered on our true innate qualities, which as a matter of fact are universal and have a spiritual basis. These principles are:

· Truth

· Righteousness

· Peace

· Love, and

· Non-violence

The practice of these virtues will enable anyone to progress in life without any doubt.

The reason is simple.

These universal principles are all attractive and needless to say, they form the cornerstones of the code of ethics. You cannot go wrong practicing the importance to moral values, codes of conduct and obeying the Law of Nature in your pursuit of Wealth.

In the coming pages, you will discover the goal of reaching financial freedom while at the same time, acquiring the perfect art of happiness through the understanding that the measure of joy is not ‘directly’ proportional to just monetary wealth.

This concise, precise and straight-to-the-point manuscript explores avenues that are most definitely going to change your life for the better.

Unlike many other books on the same subject, this manuscript delves on subject areas relevant to aspects of your personal life and growth that I can guarantee will bring back that smile on your face. It is clear, focused and above all a readable book, which you will enjoy.

Brief Introduction

One of the most difficult points to reconcile in life is the paradox that suffering exists in this world. Suffering is eminent.

Of course, what is equally important is realizing that the acquisition and possession of wealth is not a ruler that measures one’s happiness. If joy truly were to be found in materials, then all those who experience the ‘thrill’ of it by coming into contact with the object would observe the same measure of joy.

In life, men are continuously motivated by two inevitable impulses of repulsion – from sorrow and craving to seeking joy and absolute fulfillment. In the quest to embrace all happiness, he is compelled to run after the enjoyable and agreeable, while confronting the opposites, he avoids undesirable objects and disagreeable environments.

The fact is this: throughout history, all achievers conscious or subconsciously have used five principles, which are common to absolute progress in all aspects of life.