Author Archives: ernie

Web Site Health – Customer Satisfaction

Leave a reply

Web Site HealthYou have improved the content of your companies web site or blog, it is fresh and accurate. There are lots of products covered and you have added all of the information that your clients and customers may need to help them decide on using your firm or contacting your firm for more information. But calls and contacts are simply not coming through and you are beginning to wonder if the investment in this web site was worth it. Maybe you should review your Web Site Health first.

There are many different attributes that will determine if customers will come to your site and then stay there to browse your material. By having excellent original content you have satisfied the search engines, but have you done enough? Once your potential readers or customers have been presented with search results that include your web site, the next step is for them to click on the link and be presented with the results.

Web Site Health – Response time

Many web sites are slow to respond for a variety of reasons. In some cases it is the server that it is running on that is slow. In others it can be a network issue. It might even be the readers last mile or modem at their location. Regardless, if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load a page, many people are just going to move onto another site and you have lost them forever!

The server and the configuration of your web site is within your control, while the other elements are not. Take the necessary steps to make sure that you are paying for a high response time server. Then design your web site to be as fast as possible. Delete any plugins that are not being used. Compress images before uploading to your blog. Delete anything that is not being used so that your blog can run as fast as absolutely possible.

Select a WordPress Template that is Efficient

There are all types of templates available. Some are more complex than others and some will load faster than others. Keep it as simple as possible. Test a lot until you have a template that delivers the content in an efficient manner that is satisfying visually to the customer. Keep testing to ensure that the theme and template work well with your server. Remember the 3 second rule and if your site is not loading within this time frame you could be losing customers.

For information on customer satisfaction information, click here.

Save

Save

Five Guidelines for Financial Health

Leave a reply

Guidelines for Financial HealthThese were Five Guidelines for Financial Health that were developed by a survey company regarding Guidelines for Financial Health. A score of 5 means that you probably will end up financially well off, while a poor score means you will probably end up without the income or savings you need in retirement.

The correct answers are shown in bold, if you want to obtain a score of five. We also decided to expand on each of these items to help readers understand the meaning of each of these areas and how they can affect your finances over the long term. Let us know if you find this useful! This post regarding Guidelines for Financial Health could be one of the most important posts on blog that you have ever read! Do you need a million to be able to retire comfortably? Probably not, but check out this post if you want to learn more.

Five  Guidelines for Financial Health

  • Did you save any money last year? Yes
  • Did you miss any payments on any obligations in the past year? No
  • Did you have a balance on your credit card after the last payment was due? No
  • Including all of your assets, was more than 10% of the value in liquid assets? Yes
  • Is your total debt service (principal and interest) less than 40% of your income? Yes

More Details about the Five  Guidelines for Financial Health

Did you save any money last year? Yes – This is an absolute must if you are going to have money for retirement and emergencies. Set aside at least 10% of your gross income. Invest diversely and do not touch it unless there is an extreme emergency or you retire.

Did you miss any payments on any obligations in the past year? No – Not only will you maintain your credit rating, you will avoid lots of penalty fees as well as interest charges.  Following this rule can also save you money on loans in terms of lower interest rates.

Did you have a balance on your credit card after the last payment was due? No – You never want to carry a balance over or past the due date. At the lowest level the interest rate is approximately 20% for most credit cards on unpaid balances and as high as 30% on store credit cards.

Liquid Assetts

Including all of your assets, was more than 10% of the value in liquid assets? Yes – Important for emergencies, liquid assets are investments that can quickly be turned into cash to deal with an emergency. You get to avoid penalties, high interest charges, peace of mind  etc by using liquid assets to look after the financial emergency

Is your total debt service (principal and interest) less than 40% of your income? Yes – This is a key measure that most lenders use to help them decide to lend money to a customer as well as what rate to charge. If you are over 40%, chances are you will not get approved for a loan. In fact many lenders look for 30% or less before they will consider lending money at the best rates.

Think about these Guidelines for Financial Health as they pertain to your own situation and then take the appropriate action that is needed to improve your situation.

Boomers Staying Home

Leave a reply

baby boomers staying homeIn a recent survey of 4,000 Baby Boomer households conducted by the non-profit Demand Institute, 63% of Boomers plan to stay in their current home once they retire. They do not plan to downsize to a smaller home. They do not plan to move to a condo and they do not plan to move in with one of their children. This is a surprising statistic given the expressed interest by many people that they want to sell their homes. They want to find something they can move into which gives them less work. They are looking for freedom to travel both financially and from work to maintain their homes.

Having gone through this same analysis personally, we have reached the same conclusion about staying in our home. We initially thought we would sell our family home. We would find an inexpensive condo, lock the door, and travel. No need to worry about upkeep and routine maintenance activities. Turns out that this dream was not practical from a financial perspective unless we were willing to lose a lot of money. Here is some more detail as to why many boomers are finding this to be the case.

Boomers Staying Home – Expensive to move

We found it to be very expensive to move as we are sure that many others have. Let’s assume that your home is worth $300,000, a nice round number. Real estate fees will cost $15,000 @5%, and legal fees will cost at least another $2000. Various city taxes and fees can vary a great deal from nothing to $10, or $20,000! Then there is the physical cost of moving, even with friends helping is going to cost $500 to $1000. Of course, not all of your furniture will fit in the new home. There are window treatments along with various adjustments and upgrades needed in the new home. The sky is the limit. Add your own number, but we will choose $10,000 to be on the safe side. It will probably be much more than this.

When you add all of this up the cost to move could end up between $30,000 and $50,000 depending on your assumptions. For our money, we would rather put that $30,000 into our own house. We enjoy and stay in the same neighborhood that we have been in for over 25 years. We can also use some of that money to pay someone to look after the house while we are away as well. Note, if you travel, your home insurance will require that you have someone looking after your home while away. They should be checking on it at least once per week or more often.

When you work through the numbers it is evident that we are going to stay right where we are along with 63% of the population.

Journalism Principles to Consider When Writing Content

Leave a reply

Journalism Principles to Consider When Writing ContentWriting content for your website is an increasing challenge.  Journalism Principles to Consider regardless of whether you are writing for Google Adsense or to attract customers to your company’s site to sell more products must be considered. Readers have a short attention span and if you do not capture their interest in the first paragraph or above the fold, then there is less chance of them staying on your site. They move on quickly so the first rule of thumb is to put the good stuff up front to keep their attention.

If you are a journalist or a writer for online content, make sure you always place the really good tidbits up front. So in keeping with this rule, the good stuff is always upfront, use catch titles that will attract the reader in the first place, and place enough content on the page so that your bounce rate is as long as possible. We add more on these two topics in subsequent paragraphs.

Journalism Principles to Consider – Bounce Rate

Some people think that Google looks at bounce rate as a measure of interest by the reader. A short bounce rate means that either your content is not very good or it did not match what the reader was looking for. A bounce rate that is consistently short is usually going to mean that Google lowers you on the index results of searches or SERP and then no one is going to see your page. A longer bounce rate or higher one means that readers found your page interesting enough to stay long enough to read it and consider it. The bottom line in addition to placing the good stuff up front is to write consistently great content that readers will stay and read.

Journalism Principles to Consider – Titles

When Google, Bing, or Yahoo presents search results they list the title and a brief summary below the title. Based on this limited information we all decide on whether the site is relevant enough to our area of interest. If it is we click on it and if not we move to the next result. Your title is the most important element at this point and plays a major part in helping the reader to decide if it is worth their time to click on the result or not. Make your titles interesting, clear, and concise so that the reader can decide if this is something they should click on.

There are lots of other factors in Journalism Principles to Consider When Writing Content, however, if you focus on writing good content in a manner that readers will read, then you are well on the way to attracting readers to your site.

Retirement Investing: Don’t go it Alone

Leave a reply

Retirement InvestingIf you are planning to retire soon and planning to manage your own retirement account, don’t go it alone. Get help with your retirement investing. Take an active part in all decisions. Most of us do not know very much about the details of the investments we have. We participate in a mutual fund which has a combination of stocks, bonds and cash. We leave it up to our financial adviser to recommend something to us.

Then we rely on the mutual fund manager to manage the fund for us. It is a good idea to get advice from people who make it their business to understand the markets, the investment opportunities etc,. Someone has to pay them and that means you. Each time you buy a mutual fund, your adviser gets a kickback. The mutual fund manager  charges up to 2% MER fees in Canada and somewhat less in the US. You make money only after they get paid. In a down year that can mean that your account actually loses money.

Retirement Investing – Invest Directly in Equities and bonds

One way to avoid all of these fees, which are ongoing each year is to purchase equities and corporate bonds directly within your investment plan. You will pay a trading fee initially, but that is the only fee you will pay until you sell the equity. The next thing to focus on is which stocks and which bonds. Use your adviser, do your own research and stay away from speculative and high risk stocks.

In our opinion, consumers investing for retirement should focus on blue-chip companies that have a long history of paying dividends and meeting the terms of their bonds. Better still is that these companies pay a dividend on a regular basis they also routinely increase the total dividend from time to time. The same applies to corporate bonds, although in their case the interest paid is usually fixed for the life of the bond. If it is a good quality company, then your risk will be relatively low. We should mention that nothing is risk free and that is why you want to invest in a diverse group of companies so that if anything catastrophic occurs, then your total nest egg is not in jeopardy.

Seek guidance and advice from several people and them make your own decisions regarding the best approach to take with your Retirement Investing! If you worry about your investments and it keeps you awake at night, invest even more conservatively. You may sacrifice some income for less risk, but you will sleep at night.

Challenges in Retirement

Leave a reply

Challenges in RetirementThere are lots of challenges in retirement. Many people retire without enough money, health issues, and family issues to deal with. Still, many people can have a great retirement if they properly planned and saved enough money. Unfortunately, many Retirees are broke due to poor savings while they were working. Sometimes there are uncontrollable events in their lives, and they need to provide support to their families.

Challenges in Retirement – Stress in Retirement

Not having enough money to live comfortably in retirement causes a great deal of stress during what should be the best years of their lives. Without sufficient funds to live on, wondering where food is going to come from or how you will pay for it, and going to secondhand stores it can be very difficult for many seniors. North America is not exactly a senior-friendly continent as compared to other locations such as Europe. We do not seem to value our seniors in the same manner that they do in Europe and as a result, many are struggling with a great deal of stress in their lives.

Loneliness in Retirement

Not having sufficient money during retirement with family often many miles away it can get quite lonely in retirement. Unless they live in a neighborhood where people have lived all their lives, they have friends to socialize with many seniors find themselves unable to get out to be with friends and socialize.

Ignoring Health Issues

Lack of money also means that they tend to ignore health issues. If there is insufficient insurance to pay for health coverage many health-related issues will be ignored until it becomes an emergency. Older age seniors develop life-threatening issues just because they do not have sufficient funds to pay for health costs.

Worry about Health costs

There is a constant worry about how they’re going to pay for health-related costs. Even a visit to the doctor or the dentist may add additional stress and aggravate an already existing health condition. Insufficient savings or insufficient health coverage can lead to stress-related health issues. Ignoring health issues can also cause more serious issues to develop.

More Retirees are Working

As a result of all of the above, we are seeing more and more retirees going back to work. They may choose to work at part-time jobs that pay minimum wage but at least they are getting out and making some money to put food on the table. This income along with meager savings that they may have and in a few cases provides healthcare coverage allows them to live a better life.

Still Getting Frisky

Another interesting fact is that many seniors are still getting frisky with the opposite sex even though they may be getting up in years. Recent articles in the news have referred to seniors partying and dancing and leaving for extracurricular activities. This is great news and will keep everybody healthy.

Moving in With the Kids

In some cases when one spouse passes away, the other spouse will move in with the kids. If there is insufficient room in the home, this can lead to lots of stress for everybody. In some cases, your mom or dad will integrate well with your family until health-related issues crop up.

Traveling is a Dream

And for many seniors traveling is actually a dream that they dream about while they were still working but sadly are unable to fulfill that dream once they retire due to insufficient funds. They have enough to live on, in some cases comfortably but not the extra money that they need to travel and see the world the way they anticipated. This is a sad reality that sinks in a few years after they retire.

Targets for Scammers

Many seniors are also targets for scammers. It’s an unfortunate aspect of our society. With lots of sales pressure placed on seniors, they often will separate them from their money leaving them in an even worse situation than they were before. This is a terrible reality.

With all of these challenges and retirement, it is still possible to enjoy retirement and make the most of your life regardless of the situation.

Get Rid of Bad Content

Leave a reply

Get Rid of Bad ContentDo you have bad content on your website? What is bad content, and how do you identify it? Many web site owners do not even realize that their content might be considered bad, who gets to decide if content is bad or not. Turns out there are two major groups who will decide if your content is bad, and they both will have a significant impact on the results that your web site is intended to deliver. Results meaning traffic to your web site and customers that convert to revenue for your business. Get Rid of Bad Content Now.

Who are these two groups, and how do you identify them? What can you do to fix the bad content and how do you verify that the results you are looking for are being delivered to your web site. We will try to answer these questions and more in the following narrative.

Get Rid of Bad Content – What is Bad content

Anytime you have content that is  original, well written, uses keywords and phrases that people might search for, is regularly updated and kept current, you probably have great content. Web designers get into trouble when their content is copied. If it is old and out of date and the web site is not easy to navigate it can be rated lower by the search engines. There are many more criteria, however these are probably the main ones to focus on.

Get Rid of Bad Content – Major Groups

Well, it turns out that there is an obvious group and one not so obvious. The obvious one is your customers. If they are not finding what they are looking for, they may tell you and if they do you had better do something about it.

The other group is the search engines. They use their private algorithms to rate and index your web site pages and then rank you in search results. If you have bad content in their estimation, your web site will be well down the list of search results. Chances are people searching for subjects you cover will never be seen by them.

Get Rid of Bad Content – A Program

One way to address your web sites content is to develop a regular maintenance program that will over time, keep your web site up to date and current for both your readers, your customers and the search engines. For example develop a schedule to complete the following:

  • Update the oldest content once a week
  • Add content to the shortest post once a week
  • Update your content based on what readers are reading
  • Add new content on a regular basis
  • React immediately to customer comments

Your regular addition of new content based on new products and services will keep your content looking fresh. It will be up to date for the search engines and your customers.

Carrying a Mortgage into Retirement

Leave a reply

Carrying a Mortgage into RetirementThirty percent of Americans 65 years and older are carrying a mortgage into retirement. They are also trying to figure out how to handle the payments. No one really wants to carry a mortgage into retirement. However in many cases it can just not be avoided. There may be health issues that take a lot of money. There might have been a divorce or separation. Also there may be children’s education to pay for. Or maybe you just spent too much and did not plan properly.

In many cases, consumers have been laid off from a well paying job. They find themselves unable to find another job. Effectively putting them into retirement. Whatever the reason, carrying a mortgage into retirement can be difficult for some. At the very least it will limit the things you plan to do during your retirement.

Cash flow is all-important in retirement. The bottom line is that there is only so much money coming in each month, your expenses will eat into that income. Your mortgage that you carry into retirement will eat into this cash flow along with your expenses for living, visiting the grand kids etc. If you are young enough to plan in advance, make every effort to repay your mortgage in full prior to retirement.

You will have all of the cash you need to live your life. Many people will use a line of credit to help them deal with situations where they do not have the cash to handle various situations. While these are excellent tools, there is the danger of using them and then finding that you cannot pay them off quickly since the cash is just not there.

Carrying a mortgage into retirement

Folks in this situation have much less flexibility in spending due to the cash flow impact. That $400 or $800, whatever the mortgage payment is, is money that you don’t have to enjoy in your retirement.

Other pressures such as putting students through university, unemployment, retiring early, health expenses, etc. can affect your ability to repay the mortgage. Even if you have a line of credit against your home which you consider a loan, make sure that it is fully paid before you retire. We see lots of people spending a lot of money in the years before they retire to upgrade the house, buy a car, major repairs to their home, etc. If you have the cash to pay these major expenses great, if not make your cash last as long as possible to avoid serious cash flow issues.

Pay off high-interest loans first, then focus on low-interest mortgages. By taking this approach you can at least minimize the amount of interest you are paying each month.

For more lifestyle topics, click here.

Save

Mutual funds are Expensive

Leave a reply

Mutual funds are ExpensiveThe chart on the left illustrate just how expensive mutual funds can be particularly when you look at them over a 40 year period in your retirement plan. In this example mutual funds are expensive to the tune of $159,000 over this period. Why are they so expensive? The answer is pretty simple once you begin to look at some of the details. The MER or expenses charged by the mutual fund company are really what is costing consumers all of this money. These charges are billed to the mutual fund to cover management fees as well as trading fees. They vary a great deal depending on the country you are in and of course the mutual fund. In Canada for example the fees can approach 2% in many cases while in the US they are smaller, closer to 1%.

This is always in addition to any fees that you might be paying your financial adviser to manage your overall account. These fees are charged to the mutual fund whether the manager has a good year or not. We have seen situations where the mutual fund has declined year over year and they still get paid their 2%. Almost like adding insult to injury in a situation like this.

Mutual funds are Expensive Compared to What

Consider that you will always be charged the expense fee regardless of how well your mutual fund actually does in any given year. Let’s assume that the investments your mutual fund is invested in provides a return of 5%, which is an aggressive return in today’s markets. We will leave that issue for another post. If your mutual fund and your investment adviser charge a combine 2% management fee, then your return on your mutual fund investment into your account will only be 3%.

Next consider, what happens in a down year. Lets say that investments do not do well and even though the investments in the mutual fund generate 5% income, the value of the stock portfolio declines and brings the net return into the negative territory. The MER is charged even though your fund loses money which adds to the overall loss.!

Mutual Fund Fees

It is these fees that contribute to the $159,000 loss in the graph above. If you manage your own portfolio you can eliminate the management fees. You will still have some fees for trading but hopefully these will be kept to a minimum.

Since you have chosen blue chip stocks with a history of paying dividends each and every year.

Since you have high quality stocks there is also no need to rebalance. Or do a lot of trading each year which further decreases you overall fees.

Your fees can be significantly reduced leaving money in your account for your retirement. Something to think about!

Simple Web Design

Leave a reply

Simple Web DesignSome web sites look so complicated and even difficult to read that you just move on to another site. Ever stop to wonder how much time it takes to develop and maintain a complicated website? Something with lots of graphics, links to other pages both on and off-site, updating of content that is related to current events or activities within your company. These topics all take a lot of time compared to simple web site design criteria. If you are just starting your business or perhaps just getting started with an online presence, you probably should follow the KISS principle – Keep it simple silly! You can always add more detail later and pretty up the site later when you have the time or the need. Your customers will not care provided that the basic information is available and easily found. It still needs to look professional, easy to navigate, and provide the information they are looking for, however, this is easily completed even on a relatively simple and straightforward web site.

Simple Web Design – Basic Web Sites

What are the basic things that customers and readers are looking for on company sites? They are easy to consider if you think about your business for a minute. Here is a partial list, although we think it is pretty comprehensive :

  • Contact information that is accurate and works e.g. email
  • Who you are and where you are located
  • Products and services that are offered
  • How to purchase the products and services
  • FAQ’s which are up to date and really do answer all of the standard questions
  • Shipping information if applicable
  • Information about ordering products and services
  • Note that ordering and processing is not considered part of a basic site

If you cover the above in five or six pages that are easy to navigate, then you probably have a pretty simple web design. As you add more products or services, you may need more pages as well.

Updates to your site should be relatively easy and straightforward. You should be able to perform these changes yourself providing minor edits, adding pages as needed and updating content as needed. Adding functionality such as taking and processing orders online takes you beyond the simple web site design. There are widgets available that will also handle these functions for your customers.

If you need more information or would like a web site set up for your company contact us today be sending an email. For more web design topics and ideas, click here.

Save