Retirement Savings
Short and sweat, if you don’t have a retirement savings plan in place, strongly consider your options on how to get started. Coming from someone who works for a major Financial Advisory company, I have learned a few things over the years, and this being one of them. It is forced savings.
The benefit to you… your money will grow/compound tax-deferred. ie: you do not pay taxes on the money going into your IRA and defer your taxes until you withdrawal the money on the back-end (or retirement). This means you decrease your taxable earnings/salary in the beginning and the IRA savings grows tax-deferred.
A quick example for you:
If you had contributed $100/month for 30 years to a tax-deferred IRA, then paid 25% tax on your withdrawals at retirement, you would net approximately $113k (8% assumed average annual rate of return). However, in an account that’s taxed annually at 25%, your total would have been only $101k — almost $12k less just because you had to pay taxes up front.
Currently, an individual can contribute $4k to an IRA annually which will remain at $4k through 2007. In 2008 the limit will increase to $5k per year.
Whether you are 20 years of age or 60, it is not too late or too early to think about retirement. Contact a local Financial Advisor to get more details on your options on protecting yourself and planning for retirement. Those who begin to think about retirement early, are the happiest when their retirement goals are realized earlier than those who did not actively plan for their retirement. Don’t get caught in working two jobs when you are 60, that is the time when you should be enjoying life at its fullest.
Quality Content for good SEO
One of the most important techniques of search engine optimization and one thing many SEOs forget is on-site content. In previous posts quality backlinks were discussed but these will only support an on-site content. On-site content is what cached by search engines to determine if it is relevant to a searcher’s query. If a site has little or no content then it will not be given importance for keywords resulting in a worthless page and it is also in danger of looking like a SPAM site.
To discuss on-site content BarnettAssociates.net is going to be used as an example. Why? Because the website has quality content which highly relevant to its target market. But before we breakdown the site lets go over some key success factors to quality content:
- Each page has its own title, description and keywords
- Keyword rich pages without stuffing
- Flows logically from one paragraph to the next
- Pages are targeted to be highly relevant to the searchers needs
- Includes images with proper alt tags
- Links to other pages within the website
These success factors help get all the pages indexed within search engines so they give benefit to the website owner. It isn’t surprising to run across websites that only their homepage cached and it is probably safe to say that the owner doesn’t even know it.
Now lets look at BarnettAssociates.net to see what they are doing so well to get to the top of Google for the keywords Marysville Real Estate. For this analysis the following pages will be examined: homepage, Marysville page and Jennings Memorial Park page.
Homepage: Using the right click and view source feature on Windows then it is easy to see that the site is using a unique title that is conducive to doing to real estate in their area as well as a unique description as well as targeted keywords (don’t go over board). The next major thing when viewing the homepage is the keyword usage at the highest point on the page (though the image is hindering placing them at the top) and they are bolded and italicized, which adds to their importance. Now as we scroll down the homepage we find words like Marysville, Everett and Snohomish County spaced logically through out the page putting further emphases on the importance on those keywords.Marysville Page: This page also uses a conducive title, description and keywords (which are not overloaded) so search engines know what the main topic of the page are. Now when scrolling down the page we are finding information that is directly related to Marysville and it residents. It has links to city sites and information as well providing lists of the various neighborhoods and parks. The page also mixes in images of past and present Marysville to give a greater feel and help connect people with the city. The only downfall in the construction of this page is it still remains incomplete; the various neighborhood and park pages need to be finished.
Jennings Memorial Park: Being an deep interior page this means this page has to be highly specific to the topic and it is. The title tag, description and keywords are kept to the minimum and so is the content. The content and images reflect the exact topic of the page, the Ebey Waterfront Park. The page has clear images so web users can get a an accurate and in depth look at the park.
Having these type of pages will encourage search engines, like Google, to rank a site higher in the search engines because it providing rich quality content that consumers would like to view when searching terms for Marysville real estate. So how does a web master get started building pages like these? Simple, carry a camera like a check card.
By taking pictures of events and travels gives ideas on how to create pages and write content. Pictures are worth a thousand words and same goes for giving ideas on what to write while building pages. Creating quality content is the way a web master will retain consumers attention for more than just a minute.
Social Networking
Social networking has taken the internet by storm and anyone that is involved in social networking knows how powerful it can be. Social networking allows people to connect around hobbies that will spawn a new niche network fairly regularly. Being involved allows a person to create a profile, add links, post blogs and create friends lists (highly important) but how does social networking blend it self to become a quality backlink provider from on SEO standpoint?
Simple, by connecting with so many people around a particular topic users generate massive back links on what become trusted networks.
Related Post: Quality Backlinks part 1, Quality Backlinks part 2
One of the best examples of a new niche social networking site is ActiveRain. ActiveRain is a social professional network for the real estate professional and like all good social networking sites it allows user to create profile pages, add links and connect with other people all the while providing blogs and forums for it users.If you are in the real estate industry take some time and join.
Another example of a new and rapidly expanding social networking site is Squidoo. Users here around allowed to build lenses (another name for profile page) to share information, pictures, blogs and links. The difference that separates Squidoo from other social networking sites is that Squidoo allows it users to earn revenue from the creation of their lens or donate the monies to charity (or a combination of both). Many people are finding ways to share what they are interested in so if you want to get the word out with your services, products or just make a few bucks join the network.
Are you finding it hard to categories and keep track of all your blogs from one location then use MyBlogLog to keep track of all them. If you are anything like me then you may have two or more blogs already and sometimes it easy to forget about one so use MyBlogLog to organize all blogs (or websites) and connect with more bloggers in the process. MyBlogLog even offers scripts for its users to add to their blog to track live readers; a pretty unique feature and can help enable a blogger to see if their efforts are getting noticed.
The most common social networking site is MySpace and if anyone hasn’t heard of it yet then they have been living under a rock. MySpace has grown into a 21st Century icon and lends its uses to so many more than people think. It has been said that MySpace is for teeny boppers and porn freaks but there are many people using MySpace.com to get the word out about their services, bands and the like. It is easy for individuals and companies to accumilate 5,00 friends if not more in a short period of time.
But how does social networking benefit strategies that are traditionally more SEO related?
Simple, as profiles get created it enables webmasters to build one-way in-bound links to the sites of their choice using trusted networks for leverage. Over time the links on those pages will age and pass Page Rank and Trust Rank to help ensure quality SEO.Â
No longer wasting time on reciprocal exchanges will help increase the leveraging power a site can create using free social networking strategies.
Quality Backlinks part 2
Quality backlinks are always the quest and finding sources to get free links is even harder. In Quality Backlinks part 1 the importance of quality was discussed but how does an amature SEOer get quality backlinks in a short period of time? Using sources that allow people to post free profiles and what else…post links to outside website, viola!! That is what I am talking about so here are my four new favorite sources to get free quality profile pages.
Namyz – The site allows users to have there online name featured in the sponsored links section of Google’s Adwords section. Though I haven’t seen my name pop up it gives an opportunity to provide links back to all the website that a user works on.
ClaimID – Its philosophy behind this site to claim all the sites associated with a particular user. I have used it to associate myself with all the sites I have authored, designed and setup. This site is re-cached every few days and is considered an authority site with quite of bit of trust rank so by having links on their a user can provide one-way in-bound links to many sites from one source.
MyBlogLog – A blog aggregation site where, again, a user can claim sites that they author and manage. It is a fun cool site and it is easy to use. Though it is free they do offer a paid subscription so users can track their site live stats if a site allows to insert a piece of JavaScript in the framework of the site.
LinkedIn – A professional networking site that allows users to build a free professional profile and…wait for it…add links though three looks like the maximum and they aren’t able to be titled specifically.
These are profiles are easy to setup they just take time like most free sources of links. But over time they will provide a consistent one way source of trusted quality links. Hopefully some people won’t get to angry with me sharing this information but ah well.
Quality Backlinks Part 1
It is well known that links are a highly important aspect of a SEO’s offsite marketing campaign and the quest to find high quality links is becoming harder and harder for most. There are still many sites that allow to post links for free with out requiring reciprocal links but that is not what this article is going to focus on. I am going to share a few free sites that any SEO can set up pages on a point links to their site.
First, I would like to cover the idea of Trust Rank. Trust rank is similar to Page Rank but it has more value attached to it and as an example a .gov website usually has more Trust Rank associated with it than a traditional .com. If a site is highly trusted it can pass serious rank onto another site through linking. That is why .edu links are so helpful when obtained and why people seek out highly trusted sites for links.
Second, I would like to discuss free social networks. Social networks are the latest craze when it comes to create quality, one way in-bound links to a website. These social networks get millions of visitors and/or users from various walks of like to congregate on a central theme of social networking. Almost all the social networking sites allow users to customize a profile page, add links, videos and so on at the user’s discretion. These sites, over time, can gain a big reader base or “friends list” to where many people per day are visiting the profile and maybe visiting the links on that page as well.
Now that Trust Rank and social networking have been touched on how can a SEO makes these work to there advantage? First of all a SEO needs to seek out trusted social networks to get the biggest affect for their efforts and my favorite is Squidoo.com. It is a place where a person can make as many lenses (a profile pages) as they would like and earn revenue at the same time. I choose to donate half my revenue to charity but others may want to forward it to a PayPal account or something else.
TW Resource Group has a lens as well, http://www.squidoo.com/small-business-seo/, and it gives us a free place to push links to our website. Now free site, profile and social networks do have a draw back, sort of, they take time. Time is required to create, connect and engage the community but it all helps propagate the site and receive quality links from many sources.
If more trusted links are in your business plan for 2007 then get on the ball and start working it 
have fun!!