Feeding the soil with minerals, to the Organic vegetable gardener, usually means putting waste organic matter, (stems, stalks & leaves which we did not eat), back into the soil. But, if the vegetable matter is grown in mineral-poor ground, what does this ultimately mean for the long term future of our soils and subsequent crops?
HOW DID MINERALS GET INTO THE SOIL?
When the last Ice Age receded, leaving behind the ground down remains of rocks, decaying animal & vegetable matter slowly combined with it over the millenia to produce humus and soil rich in minerals. We are at the end of an interglacial period and these minerals found in the soil have been slowly used up, resulting in present day mineral depletion levels averaging 70% over the last 50 years alone. Delta land, fed by rivers, makes exceedingly fertile farming land because the minerals washed down from the mountains or hinterland are continuously replenishing minerals taken up by plants.
Of course, meats are also affected since the animals are fed on mineral defficient crops. Ask any farmer why he feeds his animals supplements, if their grazing/silage is supposed to be satisfactory, and he will probably say ‘Because the animals need it’. Farmers are not usually inclined to spend money without reason!
WARNING BELLS.
As far back as 1894 Dr. Julius Hensel wrote ‘Bread from Stones’, the first book on this subject. He argued that plants grown on mineralised soils were stronger and more nutritious and that the increasing power of the fertiliser industry was masking mineral deficiencies. A chiropractor, David Thomas, recently carried out a review on data published by the MRC (Medical Research Council), The Min. of Ag. & Fisheries, and by two authors of the Royal Society of Chemistry - R.A.McCance & E.M.Widdowson. The review is called ‘A Study of the mineral depletion of the foods available to us a a nation over the period 1940 to 1991′. Anyone interested in further details might like to look at
www.organicgarden.org.uk/min_dep_report.pdf
The conclusions from this report make grim reading: 39% sodium, 72% copper, 59% zinc (crucial to people’s behaviour & attentivness), etc. etc., all losses during the short period 1971-1991. Should we be eating 50 pieces, not just 5 pieces of fruit & veg daily! As this is government-produced information, why are we not being informed of the dire state of our soils?
Although we appear to be eating more than enough quantities of macro-nutrients (Fats, carbohydrates & protein) no-one mentions the vital micro-nutrients (minerals & trace elements) that are vital to our physical & mental health. Please don’t get me wrong; no-one with non-addictive habits in the Western world is dying from vitamin or mineral deficiency; R.D.A. levels are calculated to prevent deficiency diseases. The real questions are ‘what is required for optimal health?’ and ‘what is optimal health?’
SOLUTIONS.
Gardener & journalist Colin Shaw, writing in The Organic Way magazine (the formerly-named Henry Doubleday Research Association, of Ryton on Dunsmore) was impressed by the quality of vegetables, grown on very thin soil over a rocky base on a wind-swept barren Scottish hillside, at The SEER Center, Pitlochrie, Scotland. The soil was so poor that it had to be manufactured using municipal compost & rock dust, a quarrying by-product, 4:1 by volume. Of his visit there in late July, he comments “there were large & tasty strwaberries, the garden was in full bloom…amazing to see such a healthy, productive garden in such a hostile location”.
The rock dust came from basalt quarries and is a quarrying waste product known as ‘quarry fines’. Analysis by the SEER Center showed around 70 minerals present and is the best rock to use, although any source of volcanic rock is acceptable.
THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING…
Colin tried this method (1 bucket rock dust to 1 barrow of compost) on his own thin-soiled, newly acquired, garden in Derbyshire, building raised beds of the mixture. To his delight, the resultant crops were strong, healthy, disease-free, with no sign of beans blackfly all the summer. He states that other research has shown that the effect builds up over the years and is looking forward to years 2 & 3 with interest.
As I regularly suffer from broadbean black spot & aphid damage, I shall try this method as soon as I can!
Mike is passionate about all aspects of optimal nutrition and wellness, hill walking and personal development.
How to maintain your energy levels while on the hills - http://www.trekking-hiking-outdoors.co.uk/food-for-potential-energy.html
Cholesterol. What images come to mind when you see this word? Is it positive or negative? Is it health, or is it heart disease?
If what came to mind was negative, as something to avoid, and heart disease, then the pharmaceutical companies food industries have been successful in getting you to believe a fabricated myth!
According to George V. Mann, M.D., professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University, “Saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet are not the cause of coronary heart disease. That myth is the greatest scientific deception of this century, perhaps of any century.”
Russell L. Smith, Ph.D. is the author of the book, The Cholesterol Conspiracy. Dr. Smith states that “Both the public and clinical physicians have simultaneously been swamped by an ever-growing tidal wave of exaggerations, distortions and even fabrications of the facts.”
Here’s the truth. Cholesterol is good! It is a necessary part of every cell in your body and is essential in virtually all aspects of metabolism. Without it, we would die. That’s not the impression you got from the advertisers, is it!
Cholesterol is necessary for the brain, nervous system, hormones, digestion, liver function, heart muscle contraction, calcium metabolism and bone structure and skin. Cholesterol forms 50 percent of the nervous system and serves as the conductor of nerve impulses. It is so important that your body produces four to seven times as much as you ingest and reduces its production to accommodate cholesterol intake from the food you eat.
A deficiency of Cholesterol results in obesity, emotional disturbances, fatigue, impotency, and many more imbalances.
How the Scam Begun
In the early 1900’s, experiments were done in which rabbits were given extremely high amounts of dietary cholesterol. Their blood cholesterol rose twenty fold and a soft plaque like disease formed on the coronary arteries. But the cholesterol levels returned to normal and the plaque disappeared when the feeding was stopped. This formed the basis of the theory that cholesterol caused coronary heart disease in humans.
Here are the flaws. The rabbits were given a synthetic form of cholesterol that easily oxidized when exposed to air (which made it toxic). Rabbits also do not metabolize cholesterol as do humans. Humans and other animals like dogs and rats do not develop atherosclerosis-like disease as do rabbits when given dietary cholesterol. And finally, humans do not develop soft plaque as did the rabbits; humans develop hard plaque which does not reverse, and it is not caused by dietary cholesterol.
Eggs and Cholesterol
One of the many foods we are warned about is eggs. In one study, seventy men were divided into three groups which ate either 3, 7, or 14 eggs a week for five months. They all had similar cholesterol levels in the beginning. The total cholesterol, LDL and HDL cholesterol and triglycerides did not change during the study for any of the groups.
An 88 year old man consumed 20-30 eggs a DAY for more than 15 years, yet maintained normal blood cholesterol levels of 150 to 200.
Cholesterol occurs only in animal foods. Yet the consumption of animal fat since 1909 actually decreased by 10 percent, whereas vegetable fat increased by over 200 percent. The increase of heart attacks has paralleled the increased use of margarine, homogenized milk and processed foods such as sugar.
According to Judith DeCava, in her book, Cholesterol, Facts and Fantasies, in one study, almost half of the patients had total cholesterol levels under 200, which is supposed to be safe. Yet half of this group had coronary heart disease. Of the almost 1200 who did have heart disease, one third had cholesterol levels under 200. Dr. Michael DeBakey, the famous heart surgeon, reports that 30 percent of patients who have a coronary bypass have “normal” cholesterol levels.”
The Real Culprit
Here’s what IS clearly linked to heart disease: sugar. Judith DeCava, in her excellent book, Cholesterol, Facts and Fantasies states,
“John Yukin analyzed the refined sugar consumed by men with atherosclerosis. The men who had heart attacks ate almost twice as much sugar as those who not having heart attacks. In fact, in persons with coronary heart disease, the degree of atherosclerosis was proportional to the amount of refined sugar consumed.” (The Lancet 1964); 2 (7349):6-8.
As further evidence of this is the fact that the consumption of fat in the Caribbean countries is very low, but the use of sugar is very high. Cuba has one of the highest levels of sugar use, and has a higher death rate from heart attacks in men between ages 55 and 64 than the U.S.!
The Fox Guarding the Hen House
So what’s perpetuating this campaign of misinformation? It’s the money from the drug companies who want you to buy their cholesterol reducing drugs (that have serious side affects) and from the food industries that benefit from this scam.
Here are some examples. The American Medical Association’s Executive Vice-President, Dr. James Sammons, promised physicians in 1988 of their financial rewards by stating, “the AMA’s campaign against cholesterol will bring both old and new patients to you for necessary testing, counseling and care.”
One researcher who later became a director of the National Institutes of Health bought stock in a pharmaceutical company just before announcing the results of a study favorable to the drug’s effects. The editor of the AMA’s publication, Circulation, also received stock options on the same drug company.
Jane Heimlich began doing extensive research on this cholesterol issue in 1989. In her book, What Your Doctor Won’t Tell You, she concludes,
“There is no question that the cholesterol program…benefits three powerful groups in our society to the tune of billions of dollars. These three are the medical profession, the pharmaceutical industry, and the food companies.”
To get your FREE report entitled, “The Ten Deadly Health Myths of the 21st Century” go to: http://www.living.well.myglycostore.com
Ray Gebauer is a M.D. of a different sort–he is Mission Driven to save lives with a revolutionary technology that even MIT claims can “change the world.” As the author of the popular groundbreaking book, How to Cure and Prevent Any Disease, his passion is to educate people as to how to escape the invisible and socially acceptable trap of degenerative diseases that needlessly kill 90% of Americans.
This article is posted by Lori Wilton and Ray Gebauer.
Lori and Ray are business partners. Lori Wilton is an independent wellness consultant who specializes in glyconutrient education and has overcome her own health challenges through the understanding and practice of good nutritional principles.
The idea of this section is for you to start to build useful links from your site. Do this for two reasons:-
1.To act as a resource to your visitors 2.You may be given a reciprocal link, which should increase your traffic.
Right, now begin to consider a few ideas that you could put on a web page that would enhance the reading experience.
LOCATION
Where are the main locations of the novel?
Think about this for a minute. Is it LA? Is it Paris? Is it Africa?
Now pull up your favourite search engine (I use www.google.com all the time - it’s my favourite). Now put into the search engine the location of your book. You’ll be given, hopefully, thousands of websites to choose from. Look at a few of the links. Do any seem appealing or eye-catching? If they do, add them to the links section of your website or even profile a link on the home page. You’ve started to broaden your books appeal already.
Example
You’ve written a hard-hitting police drama set in San Francisco. So, following my advice, you put the words `San Francisco’ into your search engine.
What do you get?
Well, in less than a second I’ve found 2 million links!!!
The first link I looked at was a map of the city. Wouldn’t that be great to add as a link? People can then follow the action in your book.
Then I found the official city website. That’s a must have!
I trawl through a few more links then I find a site that has a series of web cams set up. Wow!
There you have it. Within a minute or so you’ve found three useful links for your website. Visitors to your site don’t just get a feel for the book but they get a feel for the location too.
Clever, eh?
And don’t forget to send an email to each of these sites to invite them to pop over to your site too!
Check out my link page on my St Brodag’s Isle website:-
http://www.stbrodag.com/stblink.html
I’ve focussed on other island sites. Click on the links. Have a look at the type of links I’ve put on there. I haven’t had any complaints from anyone yet.
GENRE
Let’s think for a minute about the genre of your book.
Is it a thriller? Is it science fiction? Is it humorous? Is it literary?
Who is your favourite author?
Repeat a series of searches such as the one you did for location. Find another three or four links.
This might also highlight a series of organisations to join or online communities who share your interest. Get involved. Take part in the discussions on message boards and in newsgroups.
Try:-
These sites host various communities. Find one your interested in.
Right. So you have built yourself a comprehensive links listing. That’s a good start. Remember to ask everyone if they’ll be willing to display a reciprocal link. It can never harm you to ask.
If you’ve been on the internet very long at all, you know that
one of the very best and certainly cheapest ways of making your
web site known is by exchanging links with other sites similar
to yours. The more relevant sites that link to yours, the more
your rating will improve, the more people looking for whatever
you have will find your site, the more traffic you will get and
the more sales you will make! So just how do you go about
finding webmasters who are willing to place a link to your new
site onto their site? When your site is brand new, your best bet
is to type your key words or phrases into a search engine and
see what comes up. The sites you see on the first few pages have
made it to the top of the search engine rankings. Go to the
sites and look around on the home page for the phrase “links
exchange” or sometimes just “links.” They will have instructions
for how to place their site on yours, and instructions on the
information they need from you in order for them to place a link
to your site on theirs. Always remember that the Golden Rule
applies here. You want them to place a link to you on their site
so you need to reciprocate. If you are uncomfortable with the
content of their links page and would prefer not to be
associated with that site, then just move on. There are millions
of others. Some of the higher ranked sites will have non-content
related restrictions about with whom they will exchange links.
They will only exchange with you if your site and/or links pages
have achieved a certain Google PageRank. (*More about that
later.) If you encounter such a site, graciously just move on.
Don’t waste your time linking to them or requesting a reciprocal
link because they will most likely ignore you. For instructions
on Keeping Track Of Your Links Exchanges, please follow the link
to another article that I wrote. Trust me on this one; you need
to keep track. You will eventually have many many pages with
similar sounding titles and URL’s and they will all begin to
swim around in your mind. Only a savant could keep it straight!
OK. Now your site has been up and running for awhile and you
would like to focus your search on exchanging links with sites
that have a higher PageRank. Repeat your very first steps of
typing your key words or phrases into a search engine and see
what comes up. It may or may not be the same sites you saw
before, but it will be the current top ranked sites for those
key words. Go to the first site just as before, but this time
click on the little blue icon on your Google toolbar (if you
don’t have the Google tool bar click here to download it.) You
will see a dropdown menu with 4 items on it. Click on “backward
links” and you will get a page of web sites that looks like a
regular Google search but is really all of the web pages with a
PageRank of at least 4 that have linked back to the site you
started with. Go to each of those sites and request to exchange
links with them. The procedure is the same, but all of these
sites and pages will have a PageRank of at least 4 and the more
pages ranked at least 4 that link back to you, the higher your
site will be rated. Just keep plugging away at it. It is tedious
to the max, but free (unlike some programs on the market) and
effective. At some point in time, other webmasters will begin to
contact you requesting to exchange links. Ta-daahhh! You’ve made
it! The first thing you need to do is visit their site. Is their
site relevant to yours? Are you comfortable putting a link to
their site on yours? Would you want your Grandma to visit your
site and follow that link? If the answer is yes, then put up the
link. E-mail them back to thank them for the offer and to let
them know where on your site you put their link. If you are not
comfortable putting the link on your site, don’t worry about it.
You will get requests from people who obviously didn’t read that
you prefer not to link to casinos and Viagra sites or whatever,
and you will get requests to exchange links with sites that have
absolutely nothing to do with your site’s subject matter. Just
ignore them, or you could reply and politely decline. Now here
comes some more Golden Rule stuff. NEVER turn down somebody
because their site or links page isn’t ranked high enough!
Remember that you once had a whole site of “0″ ranked pages and
were so grateful for any of the exchanges you could get. Return
the favor. Remember that you were new once and others helped
you. Remember that the “Big Kahunas” on the internet were new
once and had “0″ ranked pages that are now very highly ranked.
That new person you agree to link to today could be tomorrow’s
next “Big Kahuna.” Remember that Google has pulled the rug out
from under people before and likely will do it again. Today’s
top site could be tomorrow’s cellar dweller, and next week some
site could shoot out of nowhere to the top. You don’t have to
put their “0″ page on your “6″ or “7″ home page, but do exchange
links with them somewhere on your site. It’s the right thing to
do.
Standard, well-worn marketing techniques sometimes gain some polish when you rework them a bit. Everyone knows that happy customer testimonials are a valuable addition to your business marketing materials and your web site. Glowing comments from those who have had a good experience with your product or service are successful relationships with your customers and clients - publishing them on your web site shows visitors how successfully you have dealt with previous customers.
TURN THAT TIRED MARKETING TECHNIQUE ON IT’S HEAD!
Have you ever gone out of your way to OFFER testimonials to businesses online? There is a very fundamental difference to one aspect of the web as a marketing medium. That difference is the HYPERTEXT LINK. If you recieve marketing materials in the mail and see testimonials printed on them, you are likely to wonder who the people are offering that glowing praise and if they really had such a wonderful experience with the business they are praising. How do you find out when those testimonials are printed on paper?
Here is the reason that offering testimonials ONLINE can be of benefit to you. If you are quoted on a high-traffic web site as being very pleased with a product or service offered there, you will most likely be given a HYPERTEXT LINK to your web site. This is done as a courtesy from most businesses as a way to say “Thank You for your Compliment”. It lends a sense of credibility to your comments because people have the option of visiting your site to see who you are or follow up with you on the comments in your testimonial.
RECIPROCAL LINKING STRUGGLE IS A TEDIOUS EXERCISE
Many business owners struggle valiantly to establish links by visiting sites one by one and asking them if they will provide a link back to their site. The trick here is that you must find those sites that are ‘complimentary’ and not ‘competitors’ to your own business and convince them that their visitors would find your site valuable. Even the search for relevant reciprocal links can be tedious and tiring.
When you offer testimonials, they can be from virtually any site you’ve done business with or for any product you’ve used. A link is a link is a link. Everyone knows by now that links increase search engine rankings - right? The testimonial linking technique doesn’t require such care as reciprocal links because you aren’t likely to have done business with a competitor. The additional benefit is that you needn’t give them a return link - it’s one way linking!
YOU CAN AVOID THE DELETE KEY WITH GLOWING PRAISE
When you send those tired form-letter-type reciprocal link requests to webmasters, they’ll often delete them without even a second glance. Here, they open their email to something they actually WANT to see - praise for their hard work and a little love from their web site customers. When you send a testimonial along with your link request, you are now offering something of real value in exchange for that link. That webmaster suddenly feels grateful for your kind words and may even feel that they have an obligation to link to you if they use your testimonial.
If you are a customer of an online product or service and you’re truly pleased with them, why not send the webmaster a testimonial and tell them you’d be happy to have them publish your comments on their site? They will be pleased at your offer if your praise is short (one or two sentences) and highly complimentary of them. Include a hypertext link to your site or your e-mail in the note and tell them you’d be happy to have your comments published and request a link to your site.
NEW PRODUCTS TESTIMONIALS PROVIDE HIGHER LINKING POTENTIAL
Some webmasters actively solicit customer testimonials to push new products or services. If you are among the first to purchase those new products or services, your testimonial praising them will be particularly desirable as they seek new comments to use in their promotional sales letter page or as teasers from the home page. Give them what THEY want and they may be happy to offer you that link. If they respect YOU as a customer, they might even promote your site in email promotions.
Most sites have a page of happy customer testimonials and most offer a link back to your site or your e-mail so their potential clients can follow-up with you. Take a look at those businesses you patronize online and see if they offer those linkbacks. Then tell them how happy you are to do business with them and watch your PageRank increase and traffic grow!
The most depressing part of hair loss for lads is that there is no sure fire miracle. Baldness has been a massive issue for males all over the universe but there are tremendous treatments that will stop further hair loss. Hair Loss treatments are available from Advanced Hair Studio.
There is a lotion based treatment for hair loss called Minoxidil that might often be taken in tablet or topical lotion form and can help gents regrow their hair and stop further loss of hair. The topical lotion comes in a variety of strengths with four percent being the most popular. The loss of hair treatment is used under the watchful eye of a trained hair loss professional and should be made aware that the hair loss treatment is not an exciting miracle cure. However, the astonishing success of this treatment is approximately 66 percent. The hair loss treatment medication course is a minimum of three months before excellent results will probably show and all men are recommended to stay on the hair loss treatment for at least 9 months.
For chaps that do not witness any hair regrowth with Minoxidil they may try hair plugs. Transplant surgery is a long term solution and involves moving the hair follicles on the scalp to reduce bald areas. Hair plugs can be pricey and involves a medical procedure so may not be for everyone.
Link popularity, i.e. the number of sites which are linking to your site, is an increasingly important factor as far as search engine placement is concerned. Other things remaining the same, more the number of links to your site, higher will be its ranking.
What is important is not only the number of links to your site, but also the types of sites which are linking to you. A link from a site which is related to yours is more valuable than a link from an unrelated site.
In this article, I explore different methods by which you can improve the link popularity of your site. I start with a method that you shouldn’t bother using, then go on to the moderately effective methods, and then end with the most effective methods you can use to boost the link popularity of your site.
1) Submitting your site to Free For All (FFA) pages
A common misconception among many Internet marketers is that while FFA pages may not directly bring in traffic to your site, it will help to improve the link popularity of your site, and hence, will indirectly bring in traffic through the search engines.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Most FFA pages can contain only a certain number of links at a time. This means that when you submit your site to a FFA page, your site will be placed at the top of the page. However, as more and more people submit their sites to the FFA page, your site will be pushed down, and finally, when it reaches the bottom of the page, it will be removed.
Now, since you can bet that plenty of other people are also submitting their sites to the FFA pages, your site will remain in these pages for only a short span of time. Hence, in order to ensure that the search engines see your site if and when they come to spider the FFA page, you will need to ensure that you submit your site to these FFA pages on a regular basis - at least once a week.
Even if you used an automatic submission program to do it, can you imagine a worse way to spend your time and/or money? Furthermore, many search engines recognize these pages which only contains links to other sites as FFA pages and may completely ignore them. And while I haven’t yet seen any evidence that submitting to the FFA pages will actually penalize your site, there is every possibility that this might happen in the future.
Hence, when it comes to FFA pages, my advice is simple: don’t even think about them.
2) Starting an Awards Program
A moderately effective method of improving the link popularity of your site is to start an awards program. You can have web sites which are related to yours apply for an award from your site. The sites which win the award get the chance to display the logo for your award. This logo is linked to your site, preferably to a page which contains more information on the award.
If you publish a newsletter, consider declaring the winners in your newsletter. You can also perform a review of the winners’ sites in your newsletter. This adds useful content to your newsletter and also gives more webmasters the incentive to apply for your award, since you may review their sites in your newsletter. This also gives them the incentive to subscribe to your newsletter to see if they win the award.
Make sure that you give awards to only those sites which deserve to win. If you give your award to sites which don’t deserve it, your award will have little credibility, which will, in turn, hurt the credibility of your company. Furthermore, make sure that the logo you design for the award looks professional. If it doesn’t, not many webmasters will want to display it in their sites.
3) Giving testimonials
This may sound a bit unusual, but giving testimonials for products or services which you find useful can be another moderately effective way of improving the link popularity of your site. If you really like a product, simply write to the company and tell them why you liked the product so much and how it has helped you. Chances are, the company will write back to you to thank you for your comments and will ask you for permission to display your comments in their web site. Tell the company that you have no problems if they publish your comments, but request them to add a link to your site along with the testimonial. There is every possibility that the company will agree since publishing the URL of your web site gives more credibility to the testimonial.
Of course, please don’t go about giving testimonials to every company you can locate just because it will improve your link popularity 
4) Posting to Message Boards and Discussion Lists
Another moderately effective method of increasing the link popularity of your site is to post to online message boards. At the end of every message that you post, you can sign off by mentioning your name and the URL of your web site. If the message board allows it, you can even include a short promotional blurb about your site at the end of your posts. However, make sure that the individual messages that are posted to that message board are archived in static HTML pages (i.e. the URLs for the individual messages should not contain a “?”). Otherwise, the search engines will consider these pages to be dynamic pages and may not spider these pages and hence, will not be able to find your link.
Email based discussion lists which are archived on the web in static HTML pages can also be used to boost the link popularity of your site in a similar manner. In this case, the signature file that you use with your email program should contain the URL for your web site.
5) Starting a Link Contest
A good method of improving the link popularity of your site is to give away prizes to other webmasters if they link to you. The prizes that you give out should ideally be something which other webmasters will find valuable enough to want to link to you, but which do not cost you too much. For instance, if you publish a newsletter, and have unsold ad inventory, you can give away some free advertisements in your newsletter to the winners. If you sell a software (or an ebook), you can give away a free copy of your software or ebook to the winners, since it doesn’t cost you anything to produce an additional copy of digital goods like software and ebooks.
Link contests work best if you run the contest on a continuous basis and if you declare new winners frequently. If you run the contest for a few months, and then stop it, the webmasters who had linked to you will all remove their links. However, if you run it on a continuous basis, and declare new winners every month or so, the webmasters will have the incentive to keep their links to your site.
Also, make sure that you require all participants to have a link to your site either in their home page, or in an internal page of their site which is linked to their home page. Also ensure that the page which contains the link is no more than two levels deep from their home page (i.e. it should not take more than two clicks to go from the home page to the page containing the link). If they don’t do this, the search engine spiders may not index the page which contains the link to your site, and hence, may not find your link.
6) Writing articles and allowing them to be re-published
This is by far one of the best ways of improving the link popularity of your site, and one of my favorites. Whenever I write an article on search engine placement, I first publish it in my newsletter and then I publish the article in my site as a separate web page. I also submit it to the following article submission sites:
http://www.ezinearticles.com/add_url.html http://www.ideamarketers.com http://www.marketing-seek.com/articles/submit.shtml http://certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml http://www.web-source.net/articlesub.htm
Many webmasters and ezine publishers frequent these article directories in search of articles. Submitting my articles to these directories gives them the opportunity of re-publishing my articles. While I have had some success with each of the above directories, by far the best among them is the ezinearticles.com directory.
Now, at the end of each article, I mention that people are free to re-publish the article as long as they include my resource box (i.e. my bio) at the end of the article. I always include the URL of my site in the resource box. This means that whenever someone publishes one of my articles in his/her web site, I have another site linking to my site. Also, many ezine publishers archive their ezines in their web sites. If they have re-published my article in a particular issue, I again get a link.
Writing articles is also an excellent viral marketing tool. As some webmasters and ezine publishers publish my articles, other webmasters and ezine publishers will read my article. Some of them, in turn, will publish my article, which will again be read by other webmasters and ezine publishers, some of whom will publish it… and so on.
Also, since only web sites related to mine would be interested in publishing my articles, all these links tend to come from related sites, which, as I mentioned earlier, are more valuable than links from unrelated sites.
Writing articles, of course, has another very important benefit - if you write good articles, it makes you known as an expert in your field. This helps to improve your credibility, which makes people more comfortable about buying your products or services.
Some notes about writing articles:
i) I have learnt through experience that some webmasters will publish other people’s articles and will display the complete resource box but will not link to the URL mentioned in the resource box. In order to prevent this, you need to explicitly state that the article can be published only if the URL mentioned in the resource box is linked to your site.
ii) Your resource box should not be too long - it should be no more than 6 lines long, formatted at 65 characters per line. Otherwise, other webmasters and ezine publishers will hesitate to publish your article.
7) Submitting to the directories
This is by far the most important step as far as improving the link popularity of your site is concerned. As I mentioned before, what is important is not only the number of links to your site, but also the quality of the links to your site. No links are as important as links from some of the major directories like Yahoo!, the Open Directory etc. However, Yahoo! currently requires a payment of $299 per year in order to list any commercial site. Paying them $299 per year just to improve your link popularity is probably not cost effective. But, the Open Directory is free, and you should definitely get your site listed in the Open Directory.
Also, you should submit your site to as many of the smaller directories as possible. You can get a list of such directories at http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_W eb/Searching_the_Web/Search_Engines_and_Directories/.
Exchanging links with other webmasters
The single-most effective way of improving the link popularity of your site is to exchange links with other webmasters who have sites which are related to yours, but are not direct competitors. This is called reciprocal linking.
However, the problem with this method is the sheer amount of time it takes if you were to do it manually.
If you decide to do this manually, you can easily expect to spend hundreds of hours on this activity alone.
Here’s what you need to do:
i) You need to use the search engines to find sites related to yours that are not direct competitors by typing in some keywords that are related to your site.
ii) You also need to find sites that link to your competitors.
iii) You need to visit these sites and see if they actually exchange links.
iv) If you decide that you want to exchange links with a particular site, you need to find out exactly how it wants you to link to it from your site.
v) You then need to manually add a link to this site in your site.
vi) Then, you need to find out the email address of the owner of the website and send the owner a personalized email requesting that he/she adds a link to your site in return.
vii) In many cases, you will not be able to locate the email address of the owner simply because the owner has not published any email address on the site. In that case, all the effort that you had put into evaluating whether or not the site is suitable for exchanging links will have been a waste of time.
viii) If you do manage to locate the email address, you need to send a personalized and customized email to the website owner.
ix) You then need to wait and see whether this site is willing to exchange links with you.
x) If the site is not willing to link to you, you need to remove the link to the site from your site. Once again, all the effort that you had put into evaluating the site, linking to it and sending an email to the owner will have been a waste of time.
You have to repeat the same process all over again for the next site that you want to exchange links with.
Obviously, there has to be a better way. And there is!
Luckily for you, I have developed a ground-breaking new software called LinkExplore that completely automates the entire process of exchanging links with other website owners, thus saving you hundreds of hours of your time.
I had originally developed the software for my own needs but later decided to make it available to other website owners as well.
Go to the following URL to learn more about the software: http://www.LinkExplore.com/t.php?4901
Article by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected search engine positioning specialists on Athe Internet. hAVE Sumantra’s Company place your site at the top of the search engines. Visit: http://the-easy-way.com/main.html For more advice on how you can take your web site to the top of the search engines, subscribe to his FREE NEWSLETTER: http://the-easy-way.com/newsletter.html
Google has just sent the Search Marketing world into a frenzy of hair pulling and nail biting. Its latest shake up of its algorithm has put paid to unrestrained link swapping. It had gone overboard like Meta tag stuffing before it. Even before this latest revision, all signs indicate that the Search Engines were beginning to devalue reciprocal links and forum signatures in their SERP’s .So what is a harried webmaster to do? Are backlinks still relevant to search rankings? If they still count, how do you acquire them without running afoul of the SE’s?
The answer to that is Link Trading. Link trading also known as Link Renting, is simply paying to have a link pointing to your site from another site, usually, with a high or higher page rank. In essence you are buying the linking site’s traffic and, if your own site is related, its search relevancy.
Link trading came into vogue even before the current SE upheavals because it was often the only way a new or lowly ranked site could get any links from authority sites. Its principle advantage from a search rankings point of view is it is a one-way link - the most valuable kind - and thus constitutes a high quality link.
Secondly, link trading or renting if well executed can pull in significant amounts of traffic. If you target a site with relatively high traffic, you are likely to benefit from the overflow - obtain traffic you would not otherwise have gotten.
Link trading also has a viral or branding effect leading on from its traffic-generation benefit. More web surfers get to see your link and if you properly optimize the link’s anchor text, your site profits from the resultant visibility. You also profit from being associated with the site hosting your link, and if its reputation is good, this will yield a powerful networking advantage. The downside is clear - a site may have negative connotations for your visitors, so researching them thoroughly before buying your link space is critical.
As link renting becomes more popular, the number of sites willing to sell link space increases. Given that the purpose for most webmasters is to gain links from sites with relatively higher PR, you should consider only sites that rate as authority sites in your category. Over and above that, the usual factors for quality linking should be taken into account. Briefly these are:
1. Visitor Profile - choose only those sites that get the type of surfer you are targeting.
2. Page Relevance - make sure that the title and body content of the page hosting your link is relevant to the linked page on your site.
3. Optimized Anchor Text - it is imperative that the text in your link is optimized for your web page, as well as being curiosity arousing.
4. Text Link Placement - wherever possible determine the placement of your link - you are paying for it. Links within body text (usually in your own distributed content) are the most effective. The rule of thumb is that the higher up the page the link is placed, the better its click-thru-rate (CTR).
5. Quantity of links on page - in a link trade set up, the hosting site usually guarantees the number of outgoing links - 3-5, and never more than 10. The fewer links there are, the better your CTR. Too many (6+) will erode the link PR you acquire as well as create distractions to your link.
6. Design - again you may not have control over the design of the text link ad, but it is worth checking to see whether you have any options. A simple link will generally maximize your CTR. Dynamic urls are not spidered by the SE bots, so any ad tracking scripts will do nothing for your link popularity, only boosting traffic your site.
How to Buy Links
Many sites readily link sell space on their pages. Due to the fear of SE blacklisting, some sites are reluctant to openly advertise the fact that they will sell you link space, and with these, it is often best to approach 3rd party link brokers. This will generally not cost you more as the linking sites’ pays the brokers’ fees, but it will give you more options to choose from. The leading link brokers are Text Link Brokers and Text Link Ads. The caveats for quality linking still apply, and don’t plunge in if you are not sure.
It is usual for linking sites to charge a monthly fee for each link with the possibility of getting site wide links or links on specific pages. However site wide links tend to be more expensive and may not achieve any higher PR than single page links although they may generate more traffic. Typical charges would range from $15/month for PR3’s to +$400/month for PR7’s with wide variation in between. I do not think there is anything to be gained in linking with pages with less than PR5, principally because the PR they would pass on would be minimal.
Hosted Marketing Pages
A variation on the theme coming into fashion is Hosted Marketing Pages also known as Content Hosting or Pre-sell Pages. In this method you arrange with the site that you want a link from, to have a highly optimized, timely and relevant article that you provide, hosted on that site for a fee. You of course will have embedded all the relevant links in appropriate content that you control. Its main advantage is to allow you to advertise more links than a straight link trade, and with links that rate more highly in SE algorithms for relevance. On the other hand you lose out on PR because the article would most likely be on a brand new page, and anyway you don’t want your material competing with other similar editorials. Hosted marketing pages will I believe replace reciprocal linking as the leading SEO technique, especially to establish new sites.
HMP’s are one way of paying to syndicate articles relevant to your web site or page. Paid article syndication is not a new SEO method, but as part of a link trading strategy, it takes on a new dimension. Like with HMP’s you would distribute optimized articles, in order to acquire inbound links to your site. One can either issue press releases through agencies like PR Web, or have article directories do so. Either way you would pay for prioritization and for wider reach. Just as with HMP’s apart from the exposure your site gets, you retain control of your links’ anchor text. According to research conducted by the Marketing Experiments Journal, paid press release distribution has for traffic generation purposes, a better ROI than traditional PPC, with an added SEO benefit. (http://www.marketingexperiments.com/see/1122).
Link Trading or Link Renting differs from straight advertising in having an SEO focus that in the longer term obtains more valuable organic traffic from high SE rankings than the direct traffic generated by PPC or any other type of advertising. The latter is only effective for as long as you are shelling out money to fund it, and most advertising experiences diminishing returns, whereas an SEO technique like link trading gains momentum from its viral effect such that in time you can curtail the amount of link renting you are doing with only a marginal effect on your SE visibility.
It is debateable whether Link Renting amounts to SERP manipulation. By the reckoning of some, all SEO is just that - Search Engine manipulation. However even the SE’s are aware that SEO hones their own search results by forcing webmasters to focus more acutely the type of traffic their sites attract, based on existing search queries and extrapolating for future ones. In a hypothetical world, if all web pages were adequately optimized, even the most incomprehensible search query terms would return relevant and usable results. This is surely the holy grail of Search.
You need to decide before you start researching sites to buy links from just why you want to trade - for traffic or PR. Some research suggests that PPC has better and more controllable returns than Link Renting for traffic conversion (traffic that buys or takes some other specific action). If your aim is to boost your own site’s PR, be careful about how much you pay. Tony Simpson of Webpageaddons has written an informatively about this in a two part article. He concludes that you are much safer bidding for link space on the basis of traffic generation than PR. Either way, buying links, if properly executed, enhances the prospects for a new site, and is set to become part of the internet marketing mix for most webmasters.
Happy Link Trading
There are 13 different types of vitamins that have been identified, that are necessary for our body’s well being and health. Each of them has a specific function, and a deficiency in any one can cause a health problem or a dysfunction of a body part or organ.
Vitamin A: Also known as retinol because it generates the pigments necessary for the proper functioning of the retina, Vitamin A aids in the formation of healthy teeth, skeletal and soft tissue, mucous membranes and the skin; it is also required for reproduction and breastfeeding and for good vision. A deficiency in Vitamin A can lead to night blindness, excessively dry skin and even dryness of the eyes. The body can obtain vitamin A from carotene, a vitamin antecedent found in vegetables like sweet potatoes, carrots, kale, and broccoli among others. Our body can also absorb ready made vitamin A from plant eating animals. Some of these sources are milk, butter, egg yolk.
Vitamin B: These are water soluble vitamins and are together called vitamin B complex. They are considered extremely important for the break down of carbohydrates into energy. They are also important for the formation of red blood cells, regulation of the healthy functioning of the heart and nerve cells, absorption of proteins and synthesis of hormones and cholesterol. Thiamine, Riboflavin, Niacin, Pyridoxine, Cobalamin, Folate, Panthothenic acid and Biotin are all different types of vitamin B.
Vitamin C: Also called ascorbic acid plays an important role in maintaining healthy teeth and gums. It also aids in the absorption of iron and is important for the formation and maintenance of collagen, the connective tissue that supports many body structures. It also promotes healing as it is an antioxidant. A deficiency of vitamin C can cause scurvy. Although it is widely believed that vitamin C prevents colds and flu, these claims have not been collaborated under scientific conditions. Vitamin C is found in citrus fruits, fresh strawberries, cantaloupe, pineapple, and guava and vegetables such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, spinach, kale, green peppers, cabbage, and turnips.
Vitamin D: Also known as the ’sunshine vitamin’, our bodies are able to produce this vitamin by exposure to sunshine. Vitamin D helps in the absorption of calcium and phosphorous and is thus essential for bone formation and for healthy teeth. A deficiency of vitamin D can cause rickets, which is a deformity of the rib cage, skull and bones of the leg. Sources of vitamin D include egg yolk, tuna, dairy products like cheese, butter, margarine, cream, fortified milk and also cereals.
Vitamin E: This vitamin is known to play a role in the formation of red blood cells although its entire function in the human body is still not fully known. It is also known to be an antioxidant. Sources of vitamin E are wheat germ, olives, corn, nuts vegetable oils, liver, and leafy green vegetables.
Vitamin K: This vitamin is vital for the coagulation of blood. Vitamin K is found in alfalfa, liver, cabbage, cauliflower and cereals. The bacteria in our intestines also produces vitamin K.
Jack Smith writes about various topics. This article is free to re-print as long as nothing is changed, all links remained intact, the bio remains in full and the rel=”nofollow” tag is not added to any of the links. Thank-you - Please visit anorexia-help
If you are looking for truck driving jobs in Iraq, you have to consider the safety concerns associated with taking this type of job. The ongoing Iraqi-U.S. war makes for dangerous territory, whether you are a soldier or a citizen in Iraq. Suicide bombers and insurgent attacks are rampant, with large numbers of people dying daily. So, if you are looking for a truck driving job in Iraq, you must also consider your safety. If you have a family in the United States, you must consider how they will continue to make ends meet should misfortune happens and you are killed.
The pay for truck driving jobs in Iraq is phenomenal, compared to the obvious risks you are taking with this type of job. Even with the risks, many America citizens are opting for the jobs because they can earn a lot of money. Of course, you can just as easily die on the road here in the United States, but the stakes are not as high. Accepting a truck driving job in Iraq exposes you to possible terrorist attacks. Yet, many people cannot resist the $100k annual salary that comes along with the risks. I guess if you and your family are struggling in the States, taking a job in a war zone is worth it to provide for your family.
