Sunday 30 November 2008

How to Survive a Recession

There is no doubt that we are in a recession. What you have to answer for yourself now is what are you going to do about it? On your own, you can change it but you can adapt to the situation until things blow over.

Now how do we do that? Well the best thing to do is tighten your belt because the credit market is frozen so you won’t be able to get a loan for personal or for business purposes.

Recessions happen and you can see it and take the appropriate steps before it is too late. Here are a few tips you should know about to help you survive.

= If you happen to be in debt, get out as quickly as possible by finding ways to pay for it. If ever you need help, hire a financial consultant who can help you with your budget.



= We have to pay the bills. Instead of just paying for them, perhaps you should see if you can switch to another company that offers cheaper rates. Take a look at your electricity, gas, mobile phone, television broadband package, insurance and even your bank account then make the necessary changes.



= You should also make cuts on daily spending. When you go to the grocery, buy only what is necessary or switch to a cheaper brand. If there are items in promo, get it because they could be just as good or even better to what you are used to buying.


= One thing that every grocery always is people offering free samples. Since you are there, get some as this will surely save you a few dollars for other more important items. If the grocery you frequent gives out vouchers, make use of it as well.



= Do you always have to go out for lunch when you are at the office? Of course not. You can prepare the food at home and then take it to work. Your kids should also have a lunch bag instead of getting their weekly allowance so even at a young age, they understand the current situation.


= If possible, ask your employer if you can do some of the work at home. This will help you save gas since you don’t have to drive to work. Just be sure you are as productive at home like you are in the office.


= Owning a large vehicle may sound cool but since it is a gas guzzler, perhaps it is time to trade this in with a smaller one. The advantage of a smaller car is that you don’t burn that much gas so you don’t have to spend that much when it is time to refuel the tank.


= You can cut down your electricity expenses by replacing the bulbs to those that use lower wattage. You may also want to put the heater down by one degree, reinsulated the ceiling and stop drafts coming from the windows and doors.


= Cutting down expenses is just one way to survive a recession. You can make money from it by selling some old stuff or renting a spare room.


= If your work is not stable, perhaps you should consider switching to a career that will ensure better job security for the long term. One way is to go back to school.


= For those who have money to spare, invest in long term investments such as stocks or bonds. Their value will go up once the recession is over.


= The next best thing to do will be take an extra job. Just make sure that the time you spend here does not affect your primary job otherwise, you could lose it.


= Apart from going back to school and getting a second job, perhaps you can use your skills and then offer this as a service to others. If you like to cook, make some pastries and then sell these to potential stores. If you are good with your hands, maybe you can help repair leaks should your neighbor have a problem with their plumbing.


= If you want to reach out other customers, create a website so you can offer your products or services to other towns, states or even countries.



A recession lasts for months so you have to know what to do when it happens. For you to survive, you have to tighten your belt. If you don’t know how to do this or want to learn more, it is best to hire a financial adviser who can come up with a plan so you can just follow it.


There are other ways to survive a recession apart from those mentioned. By following these tips and getting advice from a financial planner, you are sure to wither out this storm. Until that day comes, you shouldn’t live in fear but rather make the most of it because this isn’t the first time that you will face a recession and it surely won’t be the last.


Copyright © Anne-Marie Ronsen

You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.

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How Your Business Can Survive a Recession

A recession affects everyone and it does not matter if you are employed or you are running your own business. If you don’t take the appropriate steps, you will have to file for bankruptcy and close.

No matter if your business is small or large, marketing is the best way to get your message across to the people. During a recession, you have to make cuts in the budget and instead of spending more on advertising, it is best to use this money in retraining your staff because customer service is key when you want to set yourself apart from the competition.

Fortunately, there are things you can do to prevent it from happening.

Focus on customer service. In any business, you have to entertain the customer so he or she will be able to buy from you. If you do this well, that person will come back and buy from you even if times are tough.

How do you focus on customer service? By retraining your staff and making sure they understand that this is the only way for your business to survive. Believe it or not, these people who you hire are the front line and if they don’t do well, the customer will just go in and walk out without buying anything.

You can train them by hiring someone from the outside to handle a seminar or workshop. If this is not within your budget, do it yourself and also give them a refresher course on the products or services that you are offering.

What is at stake for them? Their jobs because you can either keep them or put them out in the street making them one of the 9 million who are now unemployed in the US.

But this is not enough. Since you are the boss, lead by example. Work longer hours because your staff will see the amount of effort you put in and with that, nobody will have the right to complain.

If you had to borrow money to start your business, see if you can pay these loans in full. If there are other things you need to buy, see if you can get longer credit periods or better rates so large expenses can become smaller ones making it easy to manage.

Cash is hard to have during a recession. If your business does not use credit cards, now is the best time to get one because most people carry less than $500 in their wallet and have two or three pieces of plastic.

One of the hardest things to do during a recession is to cut down your profit margins. By doing this, people will be able to buy more. When things are improving, you can return these back to their normal settings.

During a recession, you must still be able to promote your business. You can do this by finding other ways to advertise like creating your own website or distributing flyers instead of paying for ads in the newspaper or billboard.

There are other ways to stay afloat during a recession and you may not have the answers so talk to other business owners and see what they are doing. Some of the steps they have taken may be applicable to your situation and you won’t know that until you try.

The current recession is not only a problem in our shores but also around the world. As you are reading this, companies are continuing to cut jobs and those who are having a hard time paying for mortgage are losing their homes. You could lose your business if you don’t take drastic measures because this is the only way for you adapt with the situation and survive.


Copyright © Anne-Marie Ronsen

You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.

free download
free ebooks
free software
free premium content
manual website submission
Drug Rehabilitation FORUM
FREE Quality Content

Anne-Marie Ronsen is the author of many wealth and self development books. Download FREE e-books from http://www.e-bestsellers.com, http://www.plrbestsellers.com or http://www.universalpublishingltd.com ...You will learn about the best tips and recommendations to improve your health, weight and wealth. You'll also discover FREE Premium content at http://www.ibestof.com/ and Manual Submission Directory at: http://www.webdirectorybank.com

Thursday 6 November 2008

Making Money with Google Adsense

Making Money with AdSense -- Tip #1:
Start now!
It’s as easy as falling off a log to generating revenue with Google AdSense. After you're accepted to the program, just add a few lines of html code to your site (Google shows you how once you're accepted) -- and voila!

Within a few minutes, your site will begin displaying AdWords, and so you can start making money. Each day you wait means you don’t make the bucks you could. So start now.

Making Money with AdSense -- Tip #2:
Make content pages for your site -- and put AdWords on them.
Assuming your page is a decent one, the more pages you have displaying AdWords, the more money you'll earn.

If you already have a website, display AdWords on more pages.

And always, always, always focus on making more great content pages. I suggest that you budget time each week for creating pages (and sites) on topics you love. You'll find more on creating AdSense content pages in Tip #8.

And it’s especially good if these content pages are very clearly focused. Then, Google will be able to serve highly relevant AdWords to your users. This means your visitors will be more interested in the ads, which results in higher click through rates -- and more money for you!

Making Money with AdSense -- Tip #3:
Whenever you can, use higher paying keywords.

Obviously, you'll earn more if the average AdWord that Google displays pays more per click.

The question is: how do you get Google to display higher paying keywords?


Well, for one thing, don't get greedy and create pages on unrelated keywords just because they pay more. In other words, don't create a page on 'cell phone plans' on your motorcycle tire site just because 'cell phone plans' pays more than ‘motorcycle tires.’

How to find out which keywords pay best? If you're a Google AdWords advertiser, you can log into your AdWords account and experiment.

If you're not an AdWords advertiser, use a free tool at the pay-per-click search engine, Overture.

Overture’s tool lets you see what advertisers are paying on Overture for each keyword. Sure, Overture and Google don’t pay the same. But they’re not all that different, and this tool can give you a general idea of which keywords will pay more than others.

(Also, don’t’ forget Google’s commission, so you have to allow for their cut on the amount an advertiser pays for each click.)

Making Money with AdSense -- Tip #4: You want to make new pages with higher paying keywords (while keeping it real and releveant).

Sometimes, selecting different keywords on the same topic can really make a difference in earnings.

Pretend you have a gardening site and you want to create some new pages.

By carefully selecting which topics to focus on first, you can dramatically increase your income.

With the Overture tool mentioned above, you can find out that 'water gardening' currently has a maximum price lineof $0.50, while 'gardening zone' is only $0.05. That means you can earn 10 times more by creating a page on 'water gardening' than 'gardening zones'! Which one to choose…yeah, that’s tough!

What you want to do is use information to decide which relevant keywords to focus on as you go through the process of making new pages for your site.

Making Money with AdSense -- Tip #5:
Build a new site on high paying keywords.
This is one of my most lucrative pieces of advice: create a brand new site to take advantage of Google AdSense by deliberately selecting a topic with high paying keywords.

Then, of course, you deliver dynamite content on that topic.

But how do you know what the highest paying keywords are?

Another tool you can use comes from pay-per-click search engine, 7Search. 7Search has a page on the 100 highest paying keywords. Unfortunately, it’s not perfect. The tool often 'times out' and gives you an error when you try to access the page. My best advice is just be patient and try several times to get this list—it’s worth it.

Making Money with AdSense -- Tip #6:
Pull in qualified traffic to your site.

Basic marketing 101 says if you get more qualified visitors to your site, more people will naturally click on the displayed AdWords, and you'll earn more.

If you go back and read the chapters 6, 7, 8, & 9, you’ll find some dynamite info.

Making Money with AdSense -- Tip #7:
Think about segmenting your sites: making some pages for high search engine traffic, other pages to sell products, and still other pages just for Google AdSense.

To implement this, you’ll need to recognize that different pages on your site can have different purposes. You may have pages designed to sell specific products. Others may be designed to rank high in the search engines (but don't ever try to trick the search engines). Still others can be designed for Google AdSense.

Now, once you know which pages you're creating for AdSense, your job is simple; select an appropriate keyword (or key phrase).

Then you’ll use that keyword as the file name and put dashes between the words. In the example above, you would use the file name 'water-gardening.html' for your water gardening page.

Best case scenario is that you’re able to select keywords that are the highest paying keyword on the topic. By tweaking the file name, you may be able to improve your AdSense results dramatically.

Making Money with AdSense -- Tip #8:
Knock yourself out to make high quality information pages.

The ideal Google AdSense page should have great content about a very specific topic. Take pains to be very clear about what the topic is, and carefully choose the keyword (or key phrase) describing the topic. Users don’t like vague pages that don’t make it very clear what the page is all about.

Don’t even think about trying to 'trick' AdSense. (I talked about that earlier, remember? They have penalties, including getting kicked out.) Don't create a page on one topic and give it a file name about a different topic—that’s too confusing.

In a nutshell, you want to make sure the page you create offers great value to people interested in the topic. When you provide excellent information on a specific topic, your visitors will benefit and will be more likely to click through to relevant AdWords.

Making Money with AdSense -- Tip #9:
Select vertical AdWords format.

Everyone’s seen way too many horizontal banner ads up top. Thus, Google recommends you choose the vertical -- not horizontal -- format to display your AdWords. I agree. People have become "banner blind" to a horizontal format. Plus, Google has "trained" us to click on relevant text ads on their own site and they use the vertical format.

Making Money with AdSense -- Tip #10:
Make sure you display AdWords prominently.

It’s to your financial advantage to put the AdWords near the top of your page on the right. Make sure there is enough "breathing room" -- i.e. white space around the ads -- so that they will easily attract your visitors.

Making Money with AdSense -- Tip #11:
Just don’t do it--don't cheat.

I know it’s tempting, because it seems so easy and it’s just sitting there waiting for you to do it, but do not click on the AdWords displayed on your own site to increase your revenue. Google (rightfully) frowns on this.
Plus, Google has some of the smartest engineers around, and they are very good at detecting this kind of fraud. And really, for an extra $1, is it worth getting kicked out of a money-maker like AdSense? I think not…


In closing, I want to say that these strategies can help you maximize your revenue from Google AdSense. And I personally guarantee that you’ll have a whole lot of fun creating content pages on topics you have a passion for.

So what’re you waiting for? Go to Google Adsense right now, and start getting those revenue checks!