Sunday, 11 December 2011

Ten Top Tips For Choosing Personal Loans


Choosing the right personal loan for your needs can be tricky, and if don't know what you are getting yourself into then you could end up in financial difficulties. Here are some top tips to use when choosing a personal loan:

Secured vs. unsecured

A secured loan is a loan that is secured against collateral, such as your home. Secured loans have better rates than unsecured loans, but they are more risky because you could lose your home if the repayments are not met. If you are borrowing a small amount of money and have good credit, then go for unsecured loans.

Borrow as little as you can over a short period

The more money you borrow over a longer period of time, the more interest you are going to pay. Borrow as little as you can afford to, and pay it back as quickly as you can so that you minimise the interest payments.

Fixed vs. variable

Most personal loans have fixed interest rates. This means that the monthly repayments will remain the same throughout the loan period. However, some lenders offer variable or flexible loans. These loans are good if the rate goes down, but remember budget for the rate going up as well.

APR

APR or Annual Percentage Rates determine the amount of interest you pay yearly on the loan. Although a low APR might seem appealing, be careful because this is not the only charge that you are liable for when paying back your loan.

Typical APR

If you are comparing APR, then it is good to understand the concept of 'typical' APR. Although you may qualify for this rate, it pays to remember that unless your credit history is good, you will end up paying a higher APR than the typical advertised rate.

TAR

A better way to look at how much a loan will cost is the TAR or Total Amount Repayable. This will show you exactly how much you will repay to the lender. The lower the TAR then the better the overall package is.

Shop around

The most important thing to do before getting a loan is to shop around. Before you sign anything, make sure that you have looked at all possibilities for your needs. If you can separate all the various features of a loan and concentrate on the features you require, you can find the best rates for your needs.

Look online

Although your bank may have a good deal, most of the best loan deals are to be found online because of the low overhead costs associated with online companies. You can find many web sites that will allow you to compare the best personal loan prices, helping you to get the best deal for your needs.

Beware of PPI

When securing a loan, it is likely that you will be offered PPI or Payment Protection Insurance. This insurance covers your payments in case of illness, accident or unemployment. Although this insurance may help you, very few people are eligible to claim under its terms, and it is very expensive. Look to see if your current employer covers some of these items, or find a cheaper stand-alone policy that will cover you.

Early settlement

Nearly three quarters of all loans are paid off early, so it pays to know the charges for doing so. Although charges can still be high, more and more lenders are scrapping the charges altogether. Finding a lender that does not charge for early repayment might save you a lot of money.

How to Profit And Benefit From Wordpress Ella

The "Wordpress" developer team has successfully launched their latest version of Wordpress, called "Wordpress Ella". Numerically, the version number is called version 2.1

To the uninitiated, news like this seems like a normal announcement from software developers and are often passed on by. However, from the eyes of a trained mind and savvy businessman, the news of "Wordpress Ella" contain many benefits that online business owners can immediately tap into and profit from.

"Wordpress Ella" comes with the following enhancements which are a great resource for online business owners.

1. First on the list of enhancements from Wordpress Ella is an 'autosave' function that ensures you will never lose a post again. This is an invaluable tool especially at times when you have spent a lot of time in front of your computer screen, brainstorming on what to write to promote your business.

Imagine the horror or frustration especially in instances where the battery of your notebook died and you forgot to save. Or perhaps there was a blackout or you accidentally closed the browser window without saving your work.

"Wordpress Ella" autosave function is a real time saver and is an abosolute must for any online businesses.

2. Next in line on "Wordpress Ella" is the "Import" and "Export" functions. Let's talk about the import function first.

The latest release of "Wordpress Ella" has an import function that allows you to import your blog created from other popular blogging platforms such as 'Movable Type', 'Typepad', 'Livejournal', 'Blogger' and so on, into Wordpress itself.

This way, you don't have to lose any important data such as your blog posts and comments. This flexibility is another reason why Wordpress itself is so successful and continues to gain a huge following and user base.

Why would anyone want to transfer their blog from another platform to Wordpress? Well, one reason is because with most of these other blogging platforms, the user has to pay a monthly fee. Wordpress, as almost everyone knows is free, and you can easily install with a few clicks using Fantastico from within your hosting account's Cpanel.

Another reason to migrate or transfer the entire blog to Wordpress could be due to the limitation of some blogging platforms. Blogger, for example does not support the use of categories, which are critical when it comes to optimizing the blog to rank high for specific keywords related to the business.

Now, let's discuss about the "Export" function.

"Export" as the name implies, will export all the Wordpress posts and comments into a file (called XML). This file can then be imported into other Wordpress blogs. It's like a cross transferring of data between similar or related "Wordpress Blogs".

This is useful when one is starting a new blog and perhaps need to populate the blog with useful content instead of just displaying news feed. For example, if you have a blog on muscle building, and you started a new blog on weight loss, you can import the content (which are the posts and comments) from the muscle blog into the weight loss blog.

This way, when you drive traffic to your new weight loss blog, you can at least provide the reader with some useful content while you build up the content around weight loss. Naturally there is some correlation between these two topics. After all, if you want to build muscle, naturally you need to burn off the excess fats and turn them into muscles!

3. Another enhancement of "Wordpress Ella" is the new search engine privacy. What this means is that you can indicate whether you'd like your blog to be indexed or ping by search engines, especially Google, Yahoo or MSN, which are the three top search engines online.

Most experienced marketers know about the pinging power of blogs. Everytime when a post is published, Wordpress will ping or notify specific blog directories about updates to your blog, causing them to index or visit your blog, brining you that additional and much needed targeted traffic.

As crazy as it sounds, considering that most business owners would like to get their site listed in the search engines, there are also times when you might want to hide or mask your blog from the radar screen of search engines. This is true especially in cases where it's only meant for paid customers only. For example, you might be providing some sensitive information meant for paid customers and you don't want anyone doing a search on the search engines to stumble upon your blog and have access to the information.

4. Another powerful upgrade that "Wordpress Ella" brings is the ability to specify a static page as the front page for your site or blog.

Most savvy marketers employ the use of a mini site or a one page only sales letter when marketing their products or services. Normally such one page sites will also contain an opt-in box, where visitors and readers are enticed to provide their email address in exchange for a free gift, software, e-course etc.

When they do so, they will normally be enrolled in an autoresponder course that automatically does the follow-up with the said subscriber which either results in a sale or no sale.

With a blog, however, the main page or the front page will always a display of the latest chronological posts. You can create pages for a blog, however, in the past it was not that easy for the layman to do so.

With "Wordpress Ella", all you need to do if you want a static front page is to select this option in the Wordpress control panel. It can't get any easier than this.

These are just some of the enhancements that you can immediately benefit from "Wordpress Ella".

Friday, 09 December 2011

The Process for Creating a Winning Competitive Strategy


The old customary procedure of strategy development has a pure and sound logic. It has been designed in order to answer the question: What is it that we should do in order to achieve our goals?

The process essentially involves three stages:

1. Where are we now?

2. Where do we want to be?

3. How are we to get there?

This process is based on Gap Analysis. Supposedly, the competitor who will manage to execute it better and wiser (and will also carry out the strategy with consistence and persistence) will be the one who achieves the competitive advantage over the rest of the market.

I claim that this time honored process is no longer adequate. It is not sufficient for the competitive environment of this day and age. It does not help managers steer their organizations in the direction of success and profitability. I call it: "Wishful Strategizing". Its outcome is more often than not, failure. This results in executives who lose faith in strategy making altogether.

What is wrong with the classic process? Before anything else, its basic assumptions are erroneous:

Assumption # 1: We know our goals.

Our evaluation of potential is based upon the current situation, and on consumers' answers to market research questions. However, the real potential, that which we cannot see while adhering to this approach, is based on what could be.

Our initiatives and actions continuously change customer desires. Products that no consumer ever wished to exist become vital necessities. Hence raise the famous historic mistakes in market potential assessment of commercial flights, cars, computers, and so many other products and services.

Assumption # 2: The world is stable.

We assume that if we just define where we want to get to, we would surely be able to either find or make our route to get there. The leading image, in the background of it all, is that of driving through a more or less previously explored landscape that anyway remains unaltered while we progress across it. Well, the choice of image could not be more misleading. In the past, companies succeeded by discovering or unveiling unsatisfied customer needs. Today, generally speaking, there is no such thing as ungratified needs.

Moreover, customers have become infested with options. Their expectations are constantly rising. Their wants are volatile. If in the past market share was a stable index of achievements (as we used to say: "we have achieved a market share of x"), than today, in many fields, the market share data changes by the month, by the week, and even by the day. We can speak only of our average market share. Most managers will admit that there are no more sustainable competitive advantages, and that the mission has become the achievement of a repeatable competitive advantage. While the old approach is a control-oriented approach (we aspire for market dominance), the new orientation of marketing behavior is that of a dance-along with the market trends and with the customers.

Assumption # 3: Only we are doing this (or: we do it better).

The illusion that we are capable of defining specific goals and of moving towards them virtually unimpeded, assumes that our competitors are going to continue doing exactly what they have been doing so far. Well, surprise! They will do no such thing. First of all, the competitors of today may not be the competitors of tomorrow. Manufacturing in china, electronic trade, and the limitless openness of customers to novelties have lowered entrance barriers in many market categories. Furthermore, managers now spend less time in their posts. This means that new managers constantly pop up in competing companies and bring with them with new ideas, or at least a fresh ambition.

In the past, when the game consisted of a rat-race toward unfulfilled customer needs one could know exactly what one's competition was attempting to achieve. Since then more and more companies have realized the need for inventiveness and innovation, in order to do something that could succeed, and that their competitors have not yet tried.

The New Strategy

So then, what is the alternative to the old brick road to strategy? I propose that we move from wish-oriented management to opportunity-oriented management. I would like to hereby offer a new process leading to successful strategizing, which we have been using in our consulting work for the last few years. It includes four stages:

1. What's now?

2. What's possible?

3. What's feasible?

4. What's next?

The new heart of the process is the question "what is possible?". Admittedly, the old process does encompass a SWOT Analysis, in which there is an Opportunity component (the O bit). It is however a minor and usually pretty much neglected step in the strategy development process. It has no method; it has no tools. You just list whatever opportunities come to mind.

As opposed to that, the process I am offering is based totally on systematic examination and thorough scanning of available opportunities. We have developed a comprehensive methodology for doing that. We named it 'The Opportunity Scan' or in short 'The O-Scan'. This set of procedures and tools is designed to map the full scale of opportunities that are available to the company at a certain point of time. Judging from my experience, defining goals is much more meaningful, far-reaching and effective after a proper opportunity scan.

We have created the O-Scan after having analyzed in depths more than 150 companies who have managed to come up with a next big thing, and succeeded. This "new thing" usually was

A new winning business concept

A new winning competitive strategy

A new segment that offers growth potential

An innovative 'Hit' product (or service)

An irresistible brand strategy.

Our analysis asked the question: "where and how was the new opportunity found and identified?". Based on the conclusions of this extensive study as well as of our own accumulating experience, we determined that a systematic opportunity search should encompass six modules for which we assembled or designed the most appropriate instruments:

1. Consumer Fore-Search

2. Competition analysis

3. Internal Audit

4. Brand Audit

5. Worldwide Lookup

6. Inventive Thinking

The Process for strategy development, could be summed by the three Open Your I's commandments: Identify, Invent, Implement.

The static nature of the old process manifests itself once more in the norm of performing the process of strategy development infrequently, because "one does not change one's strategy every day". In contrast, the approach I am professing reads: strategy in motion, strategy in constant development that stems from the tension between the need of continuity, and the accommodation to the changing environment and opportunities. Therefore, the strategy development process is a continuous one, which constitutes an essential element of the routine management work.

How to Succeed in Personal Finance MLM


How to Succeed in Personal Finance MLM

Personal finance MLM is a great opportunity and if you are armed with the right skills, you can go far in this business. For this reason many people fail in this business. Let’s face it, business structure, compensation plan, product and training systems etc are important but without the right attitude, these tools are useless. They can’t help you to build any real-time personal finance MLM. It makes sense for those who are just new to building personal finance in MLM to focus on this all-important aspect. The four primary keys to develop an attitude that will lead you to your personal finance MLM success:

• Be Open to Learn
If you are not ready to learn things from others, chances are that you may fail in the MLM business. It’s always wise to learn from those who have been there. Find out those who succeeded in personal finance MLM and ask them how you can make your business work, listen to what they say, and then follow through on their advice. If something does not seem to be working, contact them again and discuss the issue again.

• Understand Your Purpose
There are many people who join MLM because they actually enjoy the challenges of the sales process. Others join it because it had the potential to help them achieve something big in their personal finance and in their lives. The purposes may be different but everyone must have an aim behind joining MLM. And it is this purpose that motivates the people to keep on doing the work that needs to be done in MLM. They always keep their purposes at the forefront of their minds which motivates to work even harder.

• Stay Positive
In order to achieve success in personal finance MLM, you should develop the ability to stay positive. Like anything else, there will be ups and downs in the MLM business along the process. Staying positive through the downs would not just make you relax but will also help you become successful in the long run!

• Be Committed
Commitment is another great thing that determines your success in any niche. You should learn to meet your commitments in order to succeed. Your Personal finance MLM success hugely depends on it.

Thursday, 08 December 2011

How to Monetize Content to Attain the Competitive Edge


In the world of Web 2.0 great content can be rewarded, as well as some not-so-great content. Like everything, the 80/20 rule still applies. All content is not rewarded equally. So how can you ensure you have an unfair advantage when it comes to monetizing your content?

Monetizing content comes under two broad category matches. One is using content to bring traffic to your website, and the second is ensuring you attain the best return on investment once your traffic arrives.

How to use content to increase your positions in the SERPs...

Submit articles to article directories and attain hundreds of back-links for your website. Keep in mind that any text or on-site SEO factors on your website are unlikely to bring you traffic until you build links pointing towards pages on your website.

You should also ensure that the anchor text for a link is similar to a term you would like to rank for. This means that you should choose "Adsense" as the anchor text if you want to appear highly on in the search engine result pages for "Adsense".

Use quality content to increase your quality score for adwords. In doing this you will attain a higher position in the sponsored results without increasing your cost-per-click. You could also use your copyrighting skills to increase CTR and further increase ROI for your PPC media spend.

Write website content that makes other webmasters desperate to link to you. Show authority, be there as and when it happens and make sure you have something to say about it.

Although you should not aim to change your content by filling it with keywords, make sure you at least have the text in your website content that you would like to rank for. SEO copyrighting should be discreet, but do not remember never to sacrifice calls-to-action so that you can achieve keyword density success. You will lower conversion rates, and not impress search engines either.

I have the visitors, now what do I do...

Monetization methods should come down to the basic principle of what gives the best return on investment. Maybe one of the below choices is only natural for you to select, for others it may involve rigorous testing, whilst others may implement and incorporate ideas from both.

Drive traffic to your main product offerings, through either placing content on the main landing pages for your products, or through linking to these pages.

Place contextual advertising on your website. You do not need any products, and you have the ability to attain at least 10-fold on top of what traditional print media attains per impression. Why? Adverts are targeted and driven towards the traffic that you have brought to your site.

Place affiliate code on your web site and make money for each sale you refer. With affiliate marketing you are only receiving commissions for sales you induce. If you are providing a true return on investment for buyers, then this will most likely have the strongest results.

5 Reasons Not To Start A Blog Today


The Internet is a wonderful invention. Doing research and sending email have made our lives simpler and in many ways better. As the dot com bust of the late 1990's proved nothing is perfect.

The Internet is great for creating and ruining fads. One of these could have already hit you. I am talking about blogging. You know, an online diary the allows you to log your thoughts on the world wide web. If for some reason you have not started your blog yet please don't. Here are 5 reasons not to start a blog today.

1. Be different

If it is true that new blog is started every second somewhere in the world than everyone is doing it. Not you. You march to the beat of a different drummer and will not join the crowd on blogging. This is a very good reason not to start a blog today.

2. You do not know how to write

Never mind that if you can speak you can write. All you need is a good spell checker and you are on your way. No way it could be that easy. Because you really do not know how to speak or write this is a very good reason not to start your blog.

3. You do not want to hire someone to write

Because search engines are craving information and a blog is a great way to provide that you could just hire a blog writer and probably develop a decent blog with no effort on your part. But then you would have to pay $5 to $7 for 200-300 word posts in your blog and that is out of the question. Because of the out of this world prices to hire a blog writer this is another good reason not to start a blog today.

4. You are a quitter

The Internet is cluttered with useless crap that no one is interested in. Websites that look like a 2 year old built them are a waste of valuable web space. Blogs that have 2 weeks of content and are 1 year old are just as bad. Do you know how many blogs were started and then dropped like a hot potato. Most of them. Since you quit everything you start on the Internet this is a good reason not to start a blog of your own today.

For whatever reason while I was writing this over 1800 blogs were started. Some think they will get rich on their blog and you and I both know that is not true. So I guess this is reason number 5 not to start a blog today. The odds of you ever making any money on a blog are not very good. Why Try!

How does Movable Type Work?


Blogging Made Easy with a Great Authoring Tool

Blogging is one of the fastest growing activities in the world of the Internet today. More and more people have joined the blog bandwagon because it is fun, exciting, and potentially profitable. However many people are having a hard time with their blogging experience. Not all people have the skill to convert their creative juices on an Internet page. Luckily, people who are not yet so adept with blog writing are not left without help thanks to amazing tools that are now available. Among such tools is Movable Type. Now, there are hundreds of Movable Type Blogs out there, and if you have no idea what a Movable Type Blog is, here are some information that may be useful to you.

What is Movable Type?

Movable Type, or MT for short, is basically an online publishing program that helps people create blogs using a flexible and powerful platform. One great thing about Movable Type is that it is free for personal users, although commercial users would have to pay $150. But whether free or not, Movable type is a very handy tool that provides most of your blog publishing needs. Movable type provides an interface that is quite user friendly. It allows you to fully customize the appearance of your site without the necessary bulk like in other publishing software.

The system used of Movable Type is decentralized and web-based, which allows the ease of updating content regularly. However, to use the tool, you should know how to configure Perl/CGI scripts, have a working knowledge about File Transfer Protocol, and be able to set up a domain name with a web server or host. But setting aside the required skills for installing and operating Movable Type, you are left with a very powerful tool that would help you to set up your blog easily. Anyway, the user guide is comprehensive enough for you be able to know all you need in using Movable Type, plus, its strong network of support could provide you with just about anything to resolve the problems you might encounter.

How does Movable Type Work?

To create a Movable Type blog, you would first have to subscribe to a web host that allows running CGI scripts, the us of Perl (version 5.004_04 and up), and supports DB_File Perl or MySQL database. You then have to sign up for a domain or a sub-domain name, it does not matter whether it comes from a free or a paid service, so long as you would have your own URL. After wards you need to download the newest version of Movable Type or have it installed for a minimal fee (you would need to make use of an FTP client for this

When Movable Type is already installed, you would then log in using a default username and password to be given by Movable Type (for your protection, it is advised for you to change your login profile immediately). Once you get in, you would already have a pre-existing blog that you can access through the Main Menu. You can already add entries to this pre-created blog, and doing so is just as easy as adding comments or posts to a web forum. You have the option to remove this pre-existing blog and replace it with another one, or can just edit it to your taste, adding the necessary elements you would want your blog to have. You would soon notice, how easy it is to update and modify your blog. You should find this useful when you proceed about your blogging, as you regularly post and update entries for your site. Everything is done in a user-friendly, point-and-click interface.

Movable Type and Making Money Online

The capabilities that Movable Type blogs have make them ideal venues for earning money online. To make your site profitable, you would need to have it readily updateable. The most lucrative sites are those that are regularly renewed, and those that attract hoards of visitor everyday. This can be made possible by using Movable Type.

There is no telling how far blogging would go, but looking at how fast it is becoming popular nowadays, the possibilities are bound to be endless. If you are still having difficulty making blogs, then you might benefit from Movable Type. With this great tool, you blogging experience can be fun, quick, and easy.