Author Archives: ernie

Checking the Health of Your SEO Projects

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Checking the Health of Your SEO ProjectsSEO experts know that they cannot stand still and forget about their websites. Even a perfect website will need updates and adjustments to reflect changing search parameters and customer interest. At the same time, before you embark on an SEO project it is important to assess the impacts. Review the time or cost to make the changes and what the return on investment will be. Checking the health of your SEP projects can make a huge difference in your overall profit, from customer visits, etc. The following list includes areas you want to check into and confirm. Make sure you understand your overall objectives, the results, and how much it will cost before you start.

Checking the Health of Your SEO Projects

  • Measure organic and referral traffic
  • Check the latest queries and keywords that brought you traffic.
  • Search for your brand name to confirm it is indexed
  • How mobile-friendly is your website?
  • Pay attention to site speed mainly because it is a ranking factor and a potential annoyance for visitors.
  • Check on-page SEO regularly.
  • How relevant is your traffic? Does it apply to your site?
  • A good metric to track is the number of pages indexed.
  • Increase the number of landing pages. 
  • Can search engines crawl your website?
  • Check Google Webmaster messages.
  • Verify links to your site for relevancy and ranking
  • Improve conversions (leads, subscriptions, downloads, sign-ups, comments, likes, shares, etc.).
  • Is your SEO program aiming at Increasing engagement,
  • Increase stickiness of the content. A low bounce rate and a high number of pages per visit are key factors.

How Long Will Your Retirement Savings Last

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How Long Will Your Retirement Savings LastConsumers about to retire and even those who have already retired are asking the question, How Long Will Your Retirement Savings Last? Some people have already realized that they do not have enough and will need to work far longer than they ever thought they would have. If you did not save enough by the time you are 55, chances are that you will need to keep working for many more years. But the real question is how do you even calculate if you have enough to retire? We happen to think that you really need to answer the question, How long do you expect to live during retirement? Then you can look at whether you will have enough to retire on.

How Long Will Your Retirement Savings Last

We suggest that you start by looking at how long your parents and uncles/aunts lived, add 5 years to that life span to be conservative. We are all living longer now due to better health and better food. If your parents lived until they were 80, you should expect to live until at least 85 barring other ailments, accidents, etc. If you retire at 55, then you will need to have enough savings to last 30 years in retirement.

That is a lot of years to cover from a financial perspective. The next calculation can be really complex with interest rates, growth rates, and return on investments while taking into account withdrawal rates. You might even need help from an investment adviser to determine this detailed answer. There are also calculators available online that can also help to some degree.

If you are looking for a quick answer, take your current income level, subtract any pension income you expect to receive, and multiply that number by the number of years you will be in retirement to calculate how much you will need. This is probably the maximum number since it does not take into account the income you will receive on your investments. If this number scares you, then you will either have to work longer to decrease the number of years in retirement or take an income cut while in retirement. The decision is yours. make the right one.

5 Essentials to the Best Retirement

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Essentials to the Best RetirementSometimes, you do not have a choice of when you retire. Your company may lay you off or offer incentives that cause you to retire earlier than planned. Whatever the reason, it is never too late to start thinking about the essentials of your best retirement plan. Planning now before you retire or are forced out will ensure that your retirement years are much better than they might have been otherwise. Defining your schedule will give you independence and freedom to make your own decisions on your terms.

Essentials to the Best Retirement

Take the time to address the following five questions. Your best answers will be the immediate ones that come to mind, but revisit them from time to time as you near retirement or events in your life trigger changes. If you can answer these questions, you are well on your way to planning the best retirement.

Why Do I Want to Retire – tired of your job, looking for a change, company initiated, health reasons are just some of the reasons that might push you into retirement.

What Should I Accomplish before Retirement – are there major achievements that you want to accomplish before you retire – major projects at work, pay off the house and mortgage, save for a trip, pay off all loans, downsize, major upgrades or renovations to your home, retrain for another job are just a few of the things you might consider.

Important Things to Accomplish After Retirement—What is your plan after retirement? You cannot just sit and watch TV or play golf. Will you find a part-time job, go back to full-time work, volunteer, look after the grandkids, or take up hobbies that you have put off for a long time?

Define Perfect Days in Retirement—What would be the perfect day in retirement? This is very personal and will depend on the answers to the above questions. For some, it will be an ideal round of golf, while others will achieve a significant objective they have set for themselves.

Impact on My Spouse—This is one of the most important issues to consider. Will your spouse retire at the same time? What will he or she do during retirement? Do they share the same or at least complementary goals and objectives?

BlackHat vs. Whitehat SEO

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 Whitehat SEOWhat is black hat SEO? And what is white hat SEO as well? Why should you follow one or the other? It turns out there are some very good reasons why web bloggers should follow a high-quality content approach to ensure that SERP results deliver the kind of traffic they are looking for. After all, if your web pages are not on the first or second page of the SERP results, the chances of a reader clicking on your URL are very low. As a result, traffic will decline, and whatever your objectives are for your website will not be met.

Whitehat SEO

Quality content that does not over-utilize keywords and has rich meta tags focused on addressing a customer’s or readers’ needs is going to win out in the long run. The search engines are really focused on delivering search results that are of high quality. If you are not meeting these guidelines, then your website results will suffer.

Blackhat SEO is focused on techniques such as keyword stuffing, links to just about everything, and often poor content. If you are following these kinds of approaches, there is an excellent chance that your posts and your entire website are going to be penalized by the search engines. If your site is placed in the penalty box, your traffic is going to fall like a stone.

Stay focused on high-quality content, a few appropriate links, and a small number of focused keywords. Make sure your meta tags are included. Remember, you are writing for your customers and attempting to help them address whatever question/issue they have.

Rent or Buy in Retirement 

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Rent or Buy in Retirement This is the big question for many people who are contemplating retirement and also thinking of downsizing. Should they Rent or Buy in Retirement? Or should they sell their current home. Should they purchase another smaller home that has a lower cost profile. Or should they invest their equity from the sale of their home and rent a place? This is a tough decision for many people on an emotional level as well as on a financial level. We will discuss some of the issues that consumers should consider when making a decision like this.

Rent or Buy in Retirement

Advantages

  • Mortgage interest write off
  • Property tax write off
  • Asset appreciation
  • Freedom to make changes as desired
  • Renting can mean a short term commitment to test a location
  • Renting might be cheaper – run the numbers
  • Moving into a brand new apartment with new amenities

Disadvantages

  • Repairs and maintenance of a home
  • Gaining access to equity can be difficult or slow
  • Selling a home can take a long time
  • Coming up with a down payment to buy a home
  • paying the mortgage each month
  • Landlord can change his mind and force you out
  • The apartment is unlikely to be upgraded over time
  • Leaving the family home can be difficult

Each person needs to evaluate each of these issues carefully. Then make the best decision for their personal situation. They also need to run the numbers for both scenarios to assess which one meets their financial needs. Build-in inflation for things like rent increases, utilities, etc to ensure that you do not get a big surprise.

How Often Should You Upgrade Your Blogs Targeted content

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Upgrade Your Blogs Targeted contentYou follow whitehat SEO techniques as you prepare, write and load original high-quality content. Now all you have to do is sit back and watch the traffic flow into your website. This could not be further from the truth. The reality is that you should regularly Upgrade Your Blogs Targeted content to ensure continued traffic demand and growth. Why should you do this? We will explore some of the reasons in the following narrative.

Upgrade Your Blog Targeted Content

It is much more than upgrading your blog’s targeted content. The content does become out of date. New information becomes available; products are upgraded, services change, and the way you display your company’s information can change. All of the content on your website should be reviewed regularly to ensure it is current.
Another reason to update content is to let the search engines know that your content is fresh, that it is current, and that you are paying attention to it. One of the factors that search engines take into account is how old the page is and whether the content is fresh or not.
Search engines update their algorithms regularly. Most bloggers pay attention to these changes and will adjust content they have previously written to ensure their content, keywords, and meta tags are up to date and not generating any penalties.
One last reason is mobile. Just about everything is going mobile these days. Tablets, various sized smartphones, and large and small screens are being used. But mobile is making the most gains. Web bloggers will need to ensure that their content is always meeting the requirements of mobile viewers.
Upgrade Your Blogs Targeted content regularly. Establish an upgrade program so that your site never gets behind.

Retiring Abroad – Things to Know

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Retiring AbroadThe first thing to realize when you are retiring abroad is that it is not a vacation. This is the place where you will be living for the foreseeable future. A home means lots of different things to many people. You cannot judge the location that you are moving to by the same criteria that you would when you plan to go on vacation for a couple of weeks. Yes, it should have some of the same criteria that you look for on a vacation: things to do, sandy beaches, warm temperatures, etc. Make your list and tick them off, but also include things like finding a doctor, dentist, hospital, banking, groceries, entertainment, hair stylist, etc. This is also part of moving and retiring abroad.

Retiring Abroad – No Place is perfect

Any location you retire to, will not be perfect, however, it should meet your retiring abroad criteria sufficiently that you are willing to overlook the other stuff. Some locations are really inexpensive e.g. Mexico, but the lifestyle and culture might be so different that you cannot deal with it. Then there is the language difference to deal with. Many people who retire abroad will simply overlook this angle, embracing instead the warm weather, the local culture, etc.

Comfort vs. Happiness is another area that many people strive for. Regardless of how comfortable the new location is, if you are missing the family it might not be that great. There are always solutions to your issues and one is to bring the family with you or at least have them visit often.

The World Is Not That Scary – although we hear of all kinds of things going on in the world, we have to remember that it is a big place and things happen somewhere every day. The important thing to remember is that you need to be street smart, hang around with like-minded people and stay away from bad neighborhoods. Just do the same things you would do at home.

Reducing Website Bounce Rates to Improve Stickiness

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Reducing Website Bounce Rates to Improve StickinessWhy should a business owner worry about reducing website bounce rates to improve stickiness? There are several reasons. However, it depends on the site. Some sites provide specific short answers to a question posed by the reader. They will not stay long on a post or page. Other sites are providing product or service information or content that is informative. If it is well written and addresses the questions the reader is looking for, they are likely to stay on the site longer. Poorly written content or content that does not meet the reader’s needs or match the title will not hold readers for very long. Search engines tend to measure bounce rates and stickiness as indicators of how good a site is and will rank sites higher that have a low bounce rate!

Reducing Website Bounce Rates to Improve Stickiness

There are other indicators as well. We have listed them in no particular order as follows:

  • Quality content that addresses a reader’s interest area.
  • Content is relevant and useful to the searcher.
  • Pages load quickly and don’t leave the searcher twiddling their thumbs.
  • Avoid clickbait that takes the reader off to an external site
  • Eliminate popups. They irritate readers and may take them to another external site.
  • Lots of internal linking to other relevant pages keeps the reader on your site longer
  • Avoid external links, but if you do, ensure they are related to quality sites.
  • High-quality content above the fold creates a great first impression and causes the reader to scroll onto the rest of the page.
  • Easy read, avoid making it too complicated, use short sentences, two or 3-sentence paragraphs, avoid the wall of text
  • Mobile friendly, since the majority of readers are now using mobile devices to surf
  • Site navigation, categories, and tags, links should be clear and easy to use
  • Related content can be linked to from the current page.
  • Comments and popular pages are also good. People like to see what others are reading
  • A clear call to action, particularly if you are selling a product or service to create sales and/or calls to a salesperson

For more details about bounce rates and how they affect your time on page statistics, click here.

 

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Boomers fueling Self Driving Car Interest

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Boomers fueling Self Driving Car InterestImagine that you have just turned 80 and are about to lose your driver’s license. Or perhaps you have lost your confidence to drive around the city. Would a self-driving car be of interest to you in this situation? Boomers are retiring by the thousands and they are aging as well. It turns out that the market futurists feel that Boomers fueling Self Driving Car Interest is the next big thing. It makes sense. If these cars can actually drive around the city, take you to your destination and find a place to park, what a release of freedom it will be for many that must give up driving a car.

Boomers Fueling Self-Driving Car Interest – Taxis

But they can take taxis. They do not have to take their own cars. They also do not have to worry about buying a car or paying for insurance. Still taking a taxi everywhere can get expensive, especially if the trips are across town or even longer.

A self-driving car can provide freedom for many consumers who are losing their licenses or just do not feel confident about driving. All you need to do is to get in your car, give voice commands regarding where you want to go, and your off. How easy would that be? No more navigation issues, following a map or a GPS. Sit back and relax while the car does all of the work.

It will be a few years yet before we see a lot of these self-driving cars on the road, but we think by 2025 when a lot of baby boomers will be facing driving issues, these cars will be on the road. Governments will work out the legalities, insurance companies will work out the liability associated with accidents, etc. The technology will not be perfect, but with experience, accident investigations, etc, it will improve significantly.

I cannot wait to try one of these self-driving cars myself. How about You?

SEO Practices – Use Categories vs. Tags Effectively

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SEO Practices Use Categories vs. Tags EffectivelyThe concept of SEO Practices Use Categories vs. Tags Effectively is often overlooked by web designers and, in particular, content writers. Your customers, readers, and search engines rely on this information to find material, find products, and navigate your website. A well-designed website that effectively uses categories and tags will encourage readers to stay on your website longer and lower the bounce rate.

SEO Practices Use Categories vs. Tags Effectively

Consider content as the table of contents for your website. That means that tags are your index to your site’s content. Some of the benefits of using categories and tags effectively can be summarized as follows:

Customers – can use the categories to focus on an area they may be interested in, while the tags may guide them to a specific subject or product on your site. This helps to ensure a more satisfied customer and drives retention and possible sales.

Readers – are much the same as customers. If your site is a content-only site like this one, you want to provide a means for the reader to navigate it and find their way to the specific content they are looking for. They also stay on your site longer, which lowers the bounce rate.

Search Engines – I love a well-categorized and indexed site. They will use the taxonomies, i.e., categories and tags, to navigate your site and index it. Lower bounce rates are also a significant factor in determining SERP results. Anytime you can get on the first page of search engine results gives you a 1 in 10 chance of being chosen or clicked on.

As you add content to your site, don’t forget to update your categories and tags. You may want to limit the number of categories and tags to ease the navigation.  This will make it easier to find information on your site. Click here for more SEO assistance.

 

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