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Friday, November 28, 2008
December 2008 Visiting Teaching message
To go directly to the message for this month, go to this link http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,2044-1-4702-1,00.html
My favorite quote from this message is from President Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency: "The gospel of Jesus Christ has the divine power to lift you to great heights from what appears at times to be an unbearable burden or weakness. The Lord knows your circumstances and your challenges. He said to Paul and to all of us, 'My grace is sufficient for thee.' And like Paul we can answer: 'My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me' (2 Corinthians 12:9)" ("Have We Not Reason to Rejoice?" Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2007, 19).
I testify that I personally know that the Lord can lift us up from what appears at time to be unbearable burdens. Many times in my own life, I have felt the strength of the Lord enter into me and either take from me my burdens or give me the strength to bare them up.
I have had the great blessing of raising a very special child. She was my last child and she was born with some physical challenges. One of the troubles she had as a baby was breathing difficulties. We didn't know until much later that she suffered from obstructive and central apnea which put her life at risk when she slept. Needless to say that as a Mother, I didn't sleep much either as I worried that she would stop breathing all together. Many nights I would take her to the family room and I would make her a little bed of quilts on the floor beside the sofa which I slept on. I would lay my hand on her chest so that I could tell if she was breathing or not. When she stopped breathing long enough periods of time, I would shake her and start up her breathing again. I would do this all night long, not getting much sleep, but fearing more for my little girls survival through the night.
After lots of sleepless nights, I felt almost like a zombie the next day though I still had 4 other children to care for besides my little girl. I will never forget one night, we went to bed, once again me on the sofa and my daughter on the quilts by the side of the sofa, and I was soooo exhausted. By the time about 3:00 am rolled around and I had spent my night without any sleep, I felt as if I could not do it anymore. I was just too exhausted and I needed some sleep. I got off the sofa and knelt down by the side of my little girl and said a prayer. I remember crying all the way though it. My words in essence where that I needed to turn over my little daughters care into the Lords hands, and I needed to get some sleep. I knew that there was a possibility that if it was the Lord's will, she could die in her sleep if I didn't keep shaking her.
After my prayer, I just laid down beside my little girl on the floor and before I knew it, I had fallen into a deep sleep. I slept the rest of the night and only awakened when I heard some of my other children getting up. I was frantic when I woke up and looked at my little girl to see if she was alive. She was not only alive, but sleeping very soundly herself. I realized that Heavenly Father had answered my prayer and had given me rest as well as my daughter. He had lifted my heavy burden and had preserved my daughter that night.
Like the quote from President Uchtdorf, "The Lord knows your circumstances and your challenges," and I testify that this is true, because he knew mine and lifted me.
I also want to testify that Jesus Christ is the Light and life of the world. Like the quote from Elder Dallin H. Oaks said, "His example and His teachings illuminate the path we should walk. His resurrection and His Atonement save us from both physical and spiritual death." What a blessing His life and death have given to the whole world. What an opportunity we have this month to think about Christ and read about his birth in the scriptures. Jesus is the Christ in Christmas. He is whose birth we reverence as well as celebrate.
Jesus is indeed the light and life of the world, as well as the eternal giver of hope. Julie B. Beck, Relief Society general president says, "Mormon asks, 'What is it . . . ye shall hope for?' His answer tells us of the three great hopes: 'Ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal' (Moroni 7:41).
"When you were baptized, you became participants in the first great hope, the Atonement of Christ. Every time you worthily partake of the sacrament, you have the opportunity to begin again. . . . Your hope and faith in the Savior will increase as you repent and make personal changes. . . .
"The second great hope is the Resurrection. You are all promised that through our Savior Jesus Christ you will be resurrected. . . .
"With the hope of the Atonement and the Resurrection, you have a third great hope, the hope of eternal life."
Though this life presents us with trials, challenges, heartaches, pain and grief, we can be eternally grateful, feel blessed and strengthened in our trials knowing that our loving Heavenly Father provided us a Savior, giving hope to this world.
1 comment:
- Rebecca Adams said...
Your blog is a tapastry of talent and inspiration. Bless you for your spirit of giving and sharing.
- November 29, 2008 at 8:10 AM
General Conference Talks
General Conference Reports
Proceedings of Recent General Conferences
What shall we give?
An Apostles Easter Thoughts on Christ
This short video is an Important message from the mouths of our Prophets!
July 6 - Pioneer Cooking
Click on this link to take you to the Pioneer Recipes:
I was also thinking that if you were to copy some of these recipes and print them off, that might be a fun handout for the Sisters you Visit Teach!
July 2nd - Diana Lucina Spicer Block
Visiting Teaching Tips, handouts and Ideas
For many years, I have been creating very cute and fun things to take to the ladies I Visit Teach. I have shared from time to time, my ideas with others and they have really appreciated them. I decided that since I do these anyway, I would start doing one every month and then post it on this blog to share with anyone for their Visiting Teaching. I do need to make a disclaimer.... the ideas, thoughts, stories, graphics etc. used are created by me and they are not in any way official LDS Church quotes, handouts or ideas. They are my creations or others as noted, except for the quotes that will come directly from the Monthly Visiting Teaching message found in the Ensign. Also, many thanks to the talented designers of the digital paper and elements that I use to create the beautiful artwork, and handouts you see on my blog.
You can go to http://www.lds.org/ and look up and even print the monthly message if you do not have your own Ensign magazine subscription in English or to choose to read the Liahona or Ensign in a different language go to http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=03103c7ff44f2010VgnVCM1000001f5e340aRCRD&locale=0.
For Spanish you can go to http://www.sud.org.es/
I highly recommend you get your own subscription because you will find a wealth of really good & wholesome, moral reading, that you can't find anywhere else. If you go to http://www.lds.org/ and click on "Gospel Library" then click on "Magazines" you can order your own Ensign, Liahona, New Era, or Friend magazines.
Posted by Katie Gauger at 10:41 AM 0 comments
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"Returning to the Past" A Relief Society Activity Idea
Dear Katie,
I just found your blog. It is so great. I love the idea of the Hearts of Angels. I am trying to figure out how we can use it for our VT conference and incorporate some of the things for our VT interviews. I am a new R/S president and all these things we have to do throughout the year are a little overwhelming. I love all of you ideas. So much work involved, thank you for being willing to share with all of us! I would love anything else you could pass my way.
WE had the thought earlier to use a theme of "Returning to the past" for our activities this year. So all of your old-fashioned pictures will be great to use as invites and handouts.
You might be interested in the idea we had for our B-Day dinner. We always have a progressive dinner in December to the homes of different sisters. We divide them up into about 5 smaller groups and go around to the different sisters homes in the ward. Because of the weather we cancelled it and had it at the church. We decided to do it for our B-Day dinner instead when the weather would be better. We are having the women bring a sack lunch with them and to wear something old, like a grandmothers broach or shawl, or to dress up in the time of the 1800's, and to bring a pint jar with a lid. We will have the sisters make lemonade at the first house and take with them in the jar that they brought, and then go to the next house. At the last house we will have and old fashioned cake to serve like apple walnut cake or something like that.
We still have some details to work out but at the end each member of the presidency will be at a different home and will share a prepared script. It will be written as if they were at the very first R/S meeting when the prophet Joseph Smith organized the R/S with just a handful of women.
Anyway, thank you for sharing what you have! You have a great talent!
Stacey McClellan - Blackfoot, Idaho
SELF RELIANT SISTERS BLOG HAS A GREAT ACTIVITY ABOUT GARDENING WITH KIDS - go to http://selfreliantsisters.blogspot.com/ It is well worth the time and a terriffic idea as Spring is just around the corner! Here is a tiny bit of information that you will see at the site.....
Gardening with Kids has great tips on getting kids started with gardening. Give your child some space; literally! Kids loving having spaces that are all their own, whether it`s their own desk area in the house, or the tent they've created with chairs and blankets in the family room. The same is true for gardening. Dedicate a small plot of the garden just for them. Put a fancy border around it, perhaps purchase one of the stepping stone making kits found at crafts stores in which they can mold their name and make their hand print.
Let them join you at the nursery. Let your kids know you value their opinion. Ask them which kinds of plants, flowers, and vegetables they like. Explain what will work well in your garden and what won't.
Give them (limited) choices. While you're at the nursery, ask them if they'd like pansies or petunias, marigolds or zinnias. This will give them the feeling of power without letting it get out of control.
Remind them money doesn't grow on trees. With older children discuss the budget. Let them help select seeds and blossoming plants at the nursery - and turn it into a math lesson. Let your child do the money calculations; they can tell you when the money runs out.
Let your child do what he will (especially if you have a preschooler). Let him dig, explore, play with bugs. You may be tempted to steer your child in another direction (like actually watering or weeding his garden), but this is a great way for your child to explore this exciting new universe.
Plan, plan, plan. If you have older children, say 8 or 9 or older, let them plot out their own garden on paper. Provide him or her with graph paper, pencils and seed catalogs. Give them a group of flowers and vegetables from which to choose, and then let them draw out their garden.
Get them their own gardening tools. Nothing will motivate your little gardener more than having her own little shovel, her own gardening gloves, and her own watering pail. And don't forget those bright colored rubber boots. You need to go to the site and explore all the rest of the links and ideas.


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Disillusioned masses and way forward for Buhari
Wild jubilation that greeted the arrival of President Muhammadu Buhari from London on Friday, August 19, 2017 after his 104 days of medical vacation was a clear indication that a fair percentage of the masses still love the president. The huge crowd that lined the streets of Abuja were evidently not rented despite the very short notice of the president's arrival. The crowd that welcomed the president would have been extremely tumultuous if a prior two-day arrival notice had been given. This show of love was a clear demonstration that the long-suffering masses of this nation still harbour a modicum of affection and trust for President.
A whole lot did transpire while the president was still recuperating in London. The populace was sharply divided along interest lines. One of the two interest groups became preoccupied with sinister death and incapacitation wishes for Buhari. Few politicians of the Northern extraction unconscionably threw caution to the wind by getting themselves engrossed with schemes to become vice-president in anticipation of the President Buhari's demise or incapacitation worst still. On the other hand, the second interest group that included nationals of other African countries got themselves connected to the throne of the greatest physician by making daily supplication to God for restoration of President Buhari to full health.
At a certain stage while the president was still convalescing at the Abuja house in London, the streets of Abuja became a theatre of some sorts for the anti-and pro-Buhari protesters. The anti-Buhari protesters took to the streets of Abuja and London, calling on the president to either resume work or resign from office.
The effusive joy displayed on account of the safe return of President Buhari in restored good health must have been largely informed by the unceasing hate speeches made against him by some Nigerians.
In spite of the love demonstrated when Buhari arrived from London, it is important to establish the fact that the president's popularity had dwindled significantly even before he embarked on his medical vacation. His popularity had also suffered further diminishing while he was away in London. It is equally a reality that suffering and lack have become more pronounced in the economic life of an average Nigerian. Right now, the commoners are still passing through the crucible of harsh economy without any hope of immediate respite. In fairness to Buhari, economic plight of an average Nigerian was not directly caused by him. Anyone who claims ignorance of the mindless looting of Nigerian treasury and running aground of the nation's economy by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in its 16 years reign must have been living in Pluto. Buhari had lamented the magnitude of this economic plundering at several fora; but the earlier he terms with the reality that he was elected to fix the economy and not to complain, the better for him.
In line with the popular votes given to Buhari in 2015, most Nigerians had expected him to hit the ground running immediately after he was sworn into office. Rather Buhari's extreme carefulness has turned out to be a snail speed movement for him in making decisions in appointments.
Upon the arrival of Buhari and his resumption of work, Nigerians had also expected him to have dished out some important decisions to convince the doubting "Thomases" that he is now a better and a more resolute president. But so far, much has not come from the president aside the signing of nine different bilateral agreements. The signed agreements included the Extradition Treaty between Nigeria and United Arab Emirates (UAE) toward strengthening Nigeria's anti-corruption campaign. Essence of this agreement is the strengthening of economies and security of the two countries. The president must move beyond loot recovery alone by ensuring that all recovered loots are ploughed back into the economy for its quick stimulation and to ensure that Nigerians under the weight of grinding poverty can heave a sigh of economic relief.
It is needless to reiterate that Buhari is already in the third year of his tenure and he must realise that he no longer enjoys the luxury of time. The President, members of his cabinet and top hierarchy of his party, APC, must double their efforts henceforth if they hope to retain the Aso Rock seat beyond 2019. It has now become imperative for the president to replace some of his ministers with better hands. Competence aside, some of Buhari's close appointees are only loyal to their pockets and mundane pursuits. It is so pathetic that some of Buhari's appointees are obviously not favourably disposed to his anti-corruption war. So far, the anti corruption war has been a lone battle for the president, his vice and few other committed appointees. Buhari sure knows this fact and I expect him to show the exit door to his appointees whose loyalties and integrities are in doubt without any further delay.
As a matter of urgency, Buhari also needs to strengthen his economic team and ensure that new policies henceforth must be churned out and implemented with human face. It is also imperative for the President to reduce inflation rates and exchange rate of the naira to other leading global currencies. The naira needs to be strengthened while enhanced liquidity of the economy should be aggressively pursued.
President Buhari should make efforts to encourage massive investment in agriculture in the country. The president needs to constitute a committee that will work out a workable and implementable plan on subsidising the prices of staple food items that are produced locally. This suggestion may not make much of economic sense to some people, but subsidising the cost of staple food items is far better than importation and it also guarantees economic relief for the masses.
Short-term subsidy regime of staple foods prices has become expedient for the President in view of current inflation rate and shrinking purchasing powers of the masses. Granting of soft loans to a good number of deserving Nigerians is another step that could make new business enterprises to spring up and bolster liquidity in the economy. Expectedly, beneficiaries of these loans are bound to experience new lease of lives and improved economy. The free school feeding policy of the APC should be extended to all the 36 states of the federation and Abuja as soon as possible. This policy will expectedly provide hundreds of thousands of jobs along the value chain and guarantee higher liquidity of the economy.
Downward review of the prices of petroleum products is another issue that must attract attention of the president. Prices of petroleum products in Nigeria are known to always have an immediate and corresponding impact on all sectors of the nation's economy. It is also important for Buhari to quickly work out an understanding with the 36 state governors in the country on the need for regular payment of salaries to the civil servants. This factor has been the major reason for the hardship being experienced by Nigerians. The trickle down effects of regular salaries have since become haphazard due to irregular payments to the civil servants. Speedy completion of ongoing capital projects should be another area of concern for Buhari. Aside the creation of employment opportunities, purchasing powers of the would be workers of the construction companies are bound to be strengthened and extended.
The war against corruption being waged by Buhari must be sustained with utmost commitment. The president must engage in a personal appraisal of the roles so far played by the Attorney General and the EFCC chairman to determine who is really a clog in the wheel of his war against corruption. Cyber crime must receive the President's urgent attention in view of the increasing rate at which the crime is being perpetrated especially by the younger generation. Aside the international negative ripple effects of cyber crimes, majority of the nation's youths are now taking ignoble routes that are bound to lead them to failure, intellectual laziness and voodoo practices.
As a matter of fact, the anti-corruption war of Buhari must be holistic and nondiscriminatory. The fight against corruption must be total and devoid of double standard.Mockery of this fight would be made if it is targeted at only the members of opposition PDP. More importantly is the need for Buhari to vigorously renew the war against terror. The Nigerian Army and the Air Force must brutally smoke out relics of the dreaded Boko Haram fighters from their places of hiding and operational bases. Buhari must also do away with ethnic sentiment by coming down very hard on the murderous and destructive Fulani herdsmen. The killer herdsmen have constituted themselves into a huge security threats and should in the same measure with Book Haram be decisively death with.
The president must also come down very hard on the peddlers of hate speeches, kidnappers and ritual killers through the instrumentality of Nigerian laws.Needless to reiterate that the battle for 2019 presidential election has begun in earnest. The president is truly at liberty to work assiduously for the reversal of the negative trend of poor economy, insecurity and bad governance.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Recent rulings in the ongoing litigation over the pari passu clause in Argentinian sovereign debt instruments have generated considerable controversy. Some official-sector participants and academic articles have suggested that the rulings will disrupt or impede future sovereign debt restructurings by encouraging holdout creditors to litigate for full payment instead of participating in negotiated exchange offers. This paper critically examines this claim by evaluating market reactions to litigation using an event study methodology. We analyze the effect on sovereign bonds from litigation events, with particular emphasis on Argentina for the period, 1993-2014. We find evidence that the market reacts differently to Argentina than in other countries.
Saturday, February 25, 2017
Ahmed & Alfaro: Market Reactions to Sovereign Litigation
Faisal Ahmed (Princeton Univ.) & Laura Alfaro (Harvard Univ.) have posted Market Reactions to Sovereign Litigation (Credit Markets Law Journal, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
Posted by Jacob Katz Cogan at 3:04 AM


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A website doesn't just happen, it needs careful planning and content for each page. Make sure to get together everything you need before getting started, it will save a lot of back and forth later. This tutorial explains all 100 steps that describe the how start website and how the website is created in 2019.
To help you employ the right designer for you, here are the questions you should ask potential suitors:
Can I see examples of your previous work?
Check these websites out and make sure the person did actually create them. You can even take the time to contact a couple of the website owners to ask if they would recommend using this person or company.
When can you start work on my website?
If the designer is booked up in advance, it can be a good sign that they're in demand, but you don't want to wait forever.
This will often depend on how cooperative you can be in assisting with things that come up along the way, but as a rough guide, I usually quote an average of 4-8 weeks for most sites or 2-4 months for sites with more complexity or greater number of pages.
This allows a couple of weeks for gathering all the requirements, deciding on the look & feel and planning out the layout, content, and functionality.
The remaining time is then used to work on creating the website and collaborating with the business owner to firm up the final solution. In the end, I allow a week for the business owner to test the website and come back with anything that they would like changing before we officially launch it.
Obviously, all web designers will work to their own timescales and with their own methodology but as long as you are aware of their process and understand the extent of the involvement you will both have at each stage, the details can be worked out between you.
If they say they're just a web designer and if you're also not experienced in writing good copy, you might want to look for someone else. I can't stress highly enough how important the marketing side of website design is—if you don't get this part right, your website could be a major flop no matter how pretty it looks.
Any decent web designer will want to find out as many details about your website project and your business as possible. Ideally, they will start from a similar place you did when you were defining your business and goals, and that is finding out about who your clients are, what makes them tick, why they will visit your website and what the goals and desired outcomes are.
In short, if your web designer is to give you the quality of a website you hope they will, they'll need lots of information from you. If they don't ask for any, it's most definitely not a good indicator for the future.
Here are some of the questions you should be asked by anyone who has your best interests at heart:
If you're happy your designer has gathered information pertaining to all the above questions, if you're confident that the web designer's previous work is of a standard you aspire to, and if the costings suit your budget, you may have found your perfect web designer, congratulations!
Your domain name will identify your brand, company, product or service for years to come so it's important to choose wisely.
For those who wish to use their personal name or company name as their website domain, the decision may just be as easy as checking if anyone else has already registered that name, and if not, you're in luck and your domain name is an easy pick.
If your website is to represent a product or service, this is when you have more creative license over the name you choose. But this can also be when it becomes more tricky as there are so many possibilities available to you.
One approach to finding the perfect domain name is to first brainstorm a list of keywords related to your niche. Then you can try combinations of any 2, 3 or 4 of these keywords to come up with some catchy and memorable possibilities.
Using keywords that are likely to be typed into the search engines may also help your website be found easier, so this is worth considering when choosing a name.
Here are a few points to note when coming up with a shortlist of potential winners:
Shorter domain names are usually better. Think ahead to when you're announcing your website name to the world—the shorter and more catchy it is, the easier it will roll off the tongue. Try to keep domain names to 2, 3 or at most 4 words.
For example for and 4, you and u, eye and i—the less chance for misinterpretation, the better. For example, would an eyewear company choose eyeglasses, i4glasses or eye4glasses?
None of these would be perfect if they wanted to avoid customer confusion. Try to use words with positive ramifications rather than negative, as people are often swayed by the prospect of benefit or gain rather than disappointment or loss.
Say the domain name out loud
Hear it, imagine it, since how you would feel saying it to someone who doesn't yet know your business. Does it sound right? Does it feel right in your gut? If not, don't take the chance with it as you may regret it later.
When you register a domain name, you'll likely be asked if you want to add on Domain Privacy. For me, this is a no-brainer to say yes to, because it means that your contact details are protected from the public, and this means hidden from the spammers.
If you turn down domain privacy, you'll probably find your inbox stuffed full with uninvited web design and SEO offers the very next day. You'll soon tire of all these annoying emails so get yourself the domain privacy as soon as you register your domain, then your inbox can rest easy.
If you've never set up a website before, you may not be familiar with hosting but it's actually a very simple concept.
If you think of your website as a party, you're always going to need somewhere to throw that party—that's at your host's venue. Your host might live just down the road, in the next town or could even be on the other side of the world, but either way, he's there to serve your guests, make sure your party runs smoothly and look after your day and night.
Your actual web host is simply a set of computers, connected to the internet, where you can store all the files and data for your website. The host leaves their servers permanently switched on, making your website available at any time of day to anyone who visits.
When you go to sign up for web hosting for your website, you will usually be offered different levels of service. This can vary from host to host but in general, there will be a basic package where you can put your website on a shared server and have access to all the basic services you would need for a single website.
As you move up through the packages, you will see shared hosting replaced with dedicated hosting, meaning that you don't share your website's server with anyone else who is also renting space from the host.
Shared servers can slow your website down but when you first start out I would recommend you start with the shared hosting. Then if you encounter problems or grow beyond this server's means, you can always upgrade to more appropriate hosting for your needs.
There are hundreds of web hosting companies to choose from but you probably don't know most of them when you start out. You may have heard of the popular ones such as Hostgator or GoDaddy but as with any purchase, it's advisable to check out reviews by people who have used these companies before.
These big corporations that are most famed for their cheap domain name registrations are not always the best choice for hosting too, so do your research and find one with a good reputation before you invest.
I've also used Bluehost for domains and hosting. Bluehost is a United States based company with a good reputation, who I have found provide good customer service and are a popular choice for many of my stateside friends.
If you have several websites that require a more dedicated service for higher traffic demands, LiquidWeb is the go-to company for many.
They are more expensive but if you're an internet marketer who has many fingers in lots of internet pies, they may be worth looking into. I haven't used this company so I am only reporting the positive experiences of some of my worldwide colleagues who swear by it.
Introducing WordPress
I'm talking about WordPress; the most popular website framework in existence today, with a quarter of all websites worldwide being based on it.
WordPress was originally a place to "press words"—a blogging platform essentially—but it has now grown into the easiest and most widely used framework for website developers and business owners to get to grips with.
Using WordPress, you can finally create a masterpiece of your own in record time, without the need for complicated coding.
So let's have a closer look at WordPress, which flavor you should choose and what it can do for you, your website and your business.
Let me start by saying that you don't need to know any code to design your own website in WordPress. Your site's code is hidden from view to make it less susceptible to human error, and 99% of the time you won't ever need to access it.
WordPress is one of a number of available Content Management Systems (CMS), which make the process of designing content for a website both easier for the end user and also better organized behind the scenes.
There are other popular CMS frameworks, including Joomla! (yes, with the exclamation included) and Drupal, but WordPress is touted as being the easiest to implement and understand for those new to websites or having no knowledge of coding.
The benefit of using any CMS is that it provides a way to update content using a simple user-interface, often likened to the ease of using Microsoft Word to create a document.
A CMS also allows you to apply site-wide updates that apply to all content instantly. Perfect for any business owner venturing into the online world for the first time in other words.
This all means that WordPress is an extremely user-friendly framework. It's a place where you can quickly get comfortable and where you are not overwhelmed by too much tech. There may be a few learning challenges to overcome, but with a quick overview of the user interface, you can be up and running fairly quickly.
Did you know that there are two different options when it comes to setting up a WordPress blog or website?
The first is found at WordPress.com: Create a Free Website or Blog. Here, you don't need to buy a domain or hosting and you can have a free blog set up in 5 minutes. However, there are a few drawbacks of using this flavor of WordPress.
For starters, your URL will be in the less-than-friendly format www.mywebsite.wordpress.com which is a bit of a mouthful and tells the world that you're maybe not as serious about your website as you could be.
The other downside of WordPress.com websites is that you can't upload specialist themes or use plugins on your website, which could be a deal breaker if you want a custom look or to add extra functionality.
There are advantages of having a WordPress.com: Create a Free Website or Blog website though—it's free to use, you don't need to worry about hosting, security or updates, and there are still hundreds of themes available for you to use.
If you're just starting out and aren't sure if having a website is for you, WordPress.com: Create a Free Website or Blog is the perfect place to get a feel for the user interface and see how you progress.
Most serious website owners use Blog Tool, Publishing Platform, and CMS to build their sites with. This is a free-to-use, open-source community project, with hundreds of developers worldwide contributing to its source code.
Blog Tool, Publishing Platform, and CMS have evolved from a blogging platform into a full CMS and the possibilities provided by the thousands of plugins are astounding.
The good thing about Blog Tool, Publishing Platform, and CMS is that you install it on your own domain and hosting, leaving you in full control and able to tailor it exactly how you see fit.
But as you can imagine, with this responsibility also comes challenges, but that's why you're here—to overcome the gaps in knowledge and understanding that being dropped in at the deep end can bring.
Blog Tool, Publishing Platform, and CMS are free to use, but you will need to bear the costs of a domain and hosting. With these being relatively cheap, it's a no-brainer.
There are also thousands of WordPress plugins to choose from, and these little gems can do anything from enabling you to sell digital downloads to adding email opt-in forms to your website, and almost anything else you can imagine.
You might not care what goes on in the background when you create a WordPress website but in case you are curious, here's the deal in brief. WordPress has two elements to it:
A database to hold all the data for your website, including blog post and page content. A folder structure to hold the WordPress installation files, your uploaded media files and also your themes and plugins.
These two go hand-in-hand and one can't work without the other. WordPress communicates between the files and the database, providing a very organized and efficient working structure.
If you ever connect to your site's files using a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client, you'll be able to see those file types listed above. All other content is stored in your website's database, hidden from view, and is retrieved only when someone lands on one of your pages.
My advice would be to never tinker with your website files via FTP unless you fully understand what you're doing. You should definitely not experiment with any database changes unless you consider yourself a pro—and even then you should always make a backup first.
When you choose a hosting company for your website, it's advisable to pick one that offers the One-Click Installer for WordPress. It literally does what it says on the tin—you click once and hey presto, within a few minutes your website is installed and online, ready for you to get to work on.
If you don't have the One-Click Installer available, you will just have to go through a couple of extra steps in order to get your website up and running—your host provider should be able to provide full instructions on how to do this.
If you're new to WordPress website design, the term "theme" may not be familiar. So what is it?
I like to think of a theme as a set of styles and behaviors. Just like a themed party where everyone knows what type of outfit they should come in and how to act to compliment their look, a theme can be thought of as the glue that makes the party (your website) a cohesive success.
When considering new themes for my websites, I always think in terms of what they can do for my content. I assess the possibilities the theme offers, based on a combination of the following three properties:
All three must score highly for me to consider a theme for a development. Overall style pertains to the way the website will look with the theme installed. The most popular styles are:
Blog/Multi-purpose—the most common website theme type, traditionally used for blogging or general websites that don't need anything over and above the standard pages and posts.
Magazine—used for websites that churn out lots of content regularly. Sites such as BuzzFeed and bbc.co.uk use magazine style as they want their visitors to have plenty of choices when they visit the home page. Magazine style sites often use guest writers to enable them to put more content up more often.
One page—commonly used for product launches and also for inpiduals to present their CV on. It literally is a website with one page, usually split into distinct sections as you scroll down. This style can also be used as a landing or sales letter page.
Portfolio—great for photographers or artists to show off images of their work.
Specifically designed with selling in mind. Can usually be used for physical or digital products. With thousands of WordPress themes available and many of them being free of charge, there is never a shortage of choice. So how do you make that decision? By also looking at the layout and functionality.
When I'm considering a new theme I like to look at the demo website, if one is available. I'll preview all the menu styles, design options and layouts of the pages, the font and color options, the possibilities for buttons and boxes, how images are displayed, whether it has specialist functionality such as pricing tables or accordion text boxes and so on.
I try to imagine all the types of content that I'll be creating and visualize how it would look with the given fonts, image shapes, and page layouts. If I think the content will suit the theme, it goes into the possibles pile. Or actually into my virtual pile of bookmarked themes, of which there are now many.
There's one property that can kill a theme's viability for me and that's lack of responsiveness.
That is to say that if a website made from that theme doesn't rearrange itself nicely when I view it on my mobile, I won't even consider using it. I usually test this quickly by narrowing my browser window to its smallest setting and see how the website looks.
Then I'll double check on my mobile. With over 60% of all traffic coming from mobile devices, or even more if you're only driving traffic from apps such as Instagram, it's not even worth considering a theme that isn't responsive.
Having said that, there are plugins available that can turn any website from non- responsive to responsive, but I haven't yet needed to use them so I can't comment on their effectiveness.
If you already have a website you like but it's just not responsive, the premium plugin WPtouch or the free Jetpack plugin's mobile theme option might be options for you to try.
If you can't find a free theme that does what you need within your WordPress dashboard, or if you want a top-notch website with quality design and extra functionality, it could be time to buy a premium theme.
Most can be purchased for between £30 to £60 ($45 to $90), which is not too pricey when you consider the potential for your website to make way more than that back.
Some of my favorite places to find premium WordPress themes are:
Out of the above list, Elegant Themes and ThemeForest are my go-to theme sites. Elegant Themes offers 87 gorgeous themes for one low price, the most flexible of all being pi and Extra.
With these two, not only do they come with lots of pre-defined layout templates to choose from, but if used in conjunction with the pi Builder, you can design any layout you can dream up.
Elegant Themes also offer their own set of WordPress plugins for just an extra $20, so you can cover your email opt-in, social share, mobile friendliness, and shortcode needs too.
Elegant Themes are constantly adding new features to their themes and plugins, which means they're probably going to be around for the long haul.
WordPress Themes & Website Templates from ThemeForest is part of the Envato Marketplace, where anyone can sell their digital creations. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of WordPress themes available at ThemeForest and the good news is, they all have a working demo of the theme in action.
It can take some time to find ones you like, but this up-front research will enable you to hunt out a theme that does everything you want, looks good and is also fast and responsive. Prices average around $45-$60 per theme, which usually includes lifetime updates.
With ThemeForest, it's always a good idea to check the user reviews and look at the support questions for the theme—make sure the developer is answering questions promptly and doesn't have too many bug reports.
Once you've found a theme you can't live without, simply purchase it, download the theme's ZIP file then upload it to your website to get started using it.
Plugins provide functionality for your website, over and above the standard theme features. They can be thought of as optional extras, a bit like when you buy a basic model car then choose add-ons, such as the incorporated sat nav or the alloy wheels.
As with themes, there are thousands of free plugins available in the WordPress admin area, many of which are rated highly and offer excellent functionality. There are also many premium plugins, developed by inpiduals around the world, costing anything from under £10 ($15) to a few hundred.
The good news is that most of the plugins I use and recommend are free and can be installed with 2 clicks. WordPress makes it very easy to add functionality so even if you have a theme that lacks certain features, you can often add them later.
[Note: You can free download the complete Office 365 and Office 2019 com setup Guide for here]
Whenever I install WordPress, there are a few plugins I always put onto my website immediately. Why? Because they are absolutely essential if you want to secure your website, make it run faster, get you found in the search engines and more. One of them also gives me cheaper advertising, which is a good reason to not forget to install it.
In the bonus downloads area, you'll find a handy guide to all the plugins I consider to be must-haves, that I install on almost every website. For each, there's a description of what they do and how you will benefit from using them.
The 10 Essential Ingredients Every Website Needs
The most important activity before you do anything is to hone down who you are designing your website for. Get your customer clear in your mind.
Write down as many personality and lifestyle traits about your ideal customer as you can. Here are some things to think about:
Remember that your website is for your customers to use and enjoy, so make it work for them.
If your website doesn't answer these questions in the first few seconds, the chances are you'll turn off your visitor, possibly for good. Lost at sea with no compass, looking for the exit to the lifeboats is not the way your customers should feel.
In all the above points, you can see that they're all focused on what you can do for your customer, not the other way around. Keep this in mind constantly as you decide what's in and what's out on your website.
Get those big goals clearly defined and the mini steps for how to get there. Do you have a strategy? What's your ultimate goal for a visitor to your website? And what are the baby steps that you want to take them through in order to get there?
Your strategy must be at the forefront of your mind when creating your website. Without one, you might as well be peeing in the wind. In fact, that might be more productive.
To execute your strategy well, you need to first think of the end goal—what is the ultimate outcome or action that you want a visitor to take? I assume that you know the answer to this—whether it's to buy products from you, sign up for your coaching program, join your online course or whatever else you have in mind.
But you must define that end goal. Setting up a website without it will feel a hell of a lot harder as you won't know what you need to have in place and you'll probably waste time on things that won't bring you closer to where you want to be.
Get the right tools for the job. Tools, functionality, ways to help you execute your strategy—know what they are and get them in place.
Stay safe. Put a good security and backup solution in place to protect you from those tricky hackers.
Draw people in. First impressions count and no one likes to look at an amateurish website. Make it appeal to your target audience members by using words and design elements that appeal to those exact people.
If your stats show that mobile users are visiting your website, you need to make sure your website is responsive so as not to annoy the pants off them.
Making your website look good and function well on mobile devices should be at or very near to the top of your list of website requirements. You only have to walk down the street and observe how many people are nose-to-the-ground, with their eyes on their mobile phone screen instead of on the path ahead.
On average, around 60% of website traffic comes from mobiles and tablets, so it's not worth annoying over half of your visitors with a poorly executed design unless you're ok with the same amount of potential profits going down the pan too.
When a website is truly responsive, the elements on the page, such as images and buttons, should automatically rearrange and readjust to fit smaller screen sizes and you should not have to zoom in to be able to comfortably read the text.
Once your website is able to be viewed easily on all types of devices, your potential audience satisfaction goes back up to 100%. And who wouldn't want that?
Be Relevant.
Stick to the point and only include information relevant to your audience and niche.
Realize that not all sites benefit from being beautified with pretty pictures, swirly fonts or over-the-top design elements. Often it's the simplest designs using a single highlight color and showcasing a few select areas of interest that are the most intriguing and visitor-worthy.
There is no one-size-fits-all definition of appealing, and that's why you need to again refer to your target demographic, and design your website with their tastes in mind, instead of your own.
Decide How To Give Your website Great Kerb Appeal Look at your description of your ideal client and put yourself in their shoes. Imagine coming to your website for the first time and think about what you would want to see. Write down answers to all of the following questions:
SEO—healthy, not stealthy. Make sure you get your SEO right and use keywords that have a good chance of getting you found on Google.
Write often. The more relevant content you can add to your website, the more reasons there are for people to visit.
Let's face it, we all start off as amateurs. In fact, an amateur could be defined as someone who does not get paid for their hobby or pursuit. Professionals, however, are the people we all look up to, aspire to be like and envy, because they are masters of their trade and usually earn a tidy sum for doing so.
So what sets you apart from the professionals when you start out creating your website? Experience is the first trait, knowledge is quite possibly another. Ideally, there would be a way to fast track your way to the higher end of the scale in both of these areas, and that's what this blog is intended to go some way towards.
Below are the solutions to some of the most common mistakes those new to web design often make. Taking action on these points will quickly enable you to graduate to beyond the amateur stage, so take note and take action.
You can't design your perfect website unless you understand the purpose of having it. Put yourself in your customer's shoes. Imagine you've never visited your website before but arrive on it for the first time. Answer the following questions to help you get clear on what should feature prominently on your website.
If you skip this part, you won't know who you're designing your website for and that could be costly in the long run.
If you apply the same unfocused approach to marketing your website, all you'll do is spend a fortune on advertising to the wrong crowd and probably end up with just a handful of less-than-ideal website visitors.
But if you can tune in to who your customers are, where they hang out, what their problems are and how you can solve them, you'll attract more of the people you want to work with or provide solutions for. Knowing your target audience demographic is imperative.
It's not all about you. Keep your website focused on your clients' needs— it's not your pet project.
Provide clear signposts. People need to be told what to do, otherwise, it's human nature to do nothing.
Mention the features for sure, but make sure your sales pitch is all about what your product can do for your customer.
List the features of one of your key products or services. Now go back through your feature list and next to each, list a benefit you know your customer would gain from each feature.
Visit your website and reword the description for this product to also reflect the benefits to your customer, as well as telling them about the features. Use bullet points where appropriate, for easy reading.
Go through all your product pages and make sure you are talking more about benefits than features, rewording each item description if necessary.
Or at least ask your visitor to give you their email address in exchange for something useful before they leave. This is your key to a more profitable future via relationship building.
Speed matters
Make sure your website loads quickly by saving images at the appropriate size and allowing caching.
Remove any unused plugins.
Keep your image sizes the smallest they can be by uploading them at the size they're intended to be used at and use an image optimizer plugin. I'll talk more about the specifics of image sizes in the next section.
Install a caching plugin on your website, to help speed up access for returning visitors. This will enable image-heavy pages to load faster, as the visitor will already have a copy of those images on their device, saved on their previous visit.
You can use a website speed tester to find out if your website is sluggish, such as the one at http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/
If your pages are shown to be slow to load, take a look at the ideas above for improving the situation. Implement one idea at a time then retest to see if you've cracked it.
Once you have your fabulous website up and running, keep it updated with new content and tell people about it often. A great way to make sure you don't forget about your website after you create it is to use a publishing schedule.
You can simply print out a month-to-a-page calendar, such as the one I created for you in the bonus package, and fill in the title of the content you will create on the days you intend doing so.
Other than being able to see how a whole month's content will play out, the other advantage of using a content planner is that you are more likely to stick to it if you treat each entry as an appointment with yourself.
It's said that you only have around seven seconds to make a good first impression. With a website, I'd put that down to around three. In this digital age, your website has to get its worthiness across quicker than ever.
How good your website looks is not just about what colors or fonts you use, it goes much deeper than that. Many of the notions of what makes a website attractive are not easily quantified in words and can also be subjective.
But let's take a slightly more formulaic approach, looking at all the features of a website and how they can best be used to give an overall look and feel that gratifies and makes a great first impression.
Such items are very keenly priced and can transform your website from distinctly average to very- definitely-professional within a few clicks.
There are many advantages to buying a premium theme. For a start, they're more likely to have been written with the latest coding standards in mind and be kept up-to-date often. This is important as it guards against potential incompatibility problems when updating the core WordPress functionality.
With a free theme that comes with little or no support, when things start to go wrong, you may have no choice but to swap themes, which is always a pain in the neck as you will inevitably have to redesign some pages and set up your new look and feel options as a minimum.
If your premium theme developer is reputable and keeps their code up to date, you're less likely to have this type of issue later on because the updates will integrate into your current design seamlessly.
Keep your pages tidy and free from lesser quality items, to keep your visitor focused on what you want them to see.
How many times have you gone to a website and just not been able to find what you're looking for? One of the problems some website owners suffer from is a type of hoarding, where they'll just throw everything they can think of onto the home page, in the hope that their visit will somehow find what they need.
Sometimes that chance will not come around because frankly, your visitor will get bored or frustrated before they get to that nugget of information they were looking for. This only means one thing—the exit crosshairs.
Sticking to a pre-defined color palette will not only make everything feel more consistent, but it will enable your visitor to recognize your content more easily. Sticking to a consistent set of fonts and colors as your base for all content
Choosing one font for your body text and another for your headings is about as complicated as you need to make it. Use them throughout and you'll give your visitor a better experience. https://www.google.com/fonts
I like to use this tool to find a suitable font for my website headings and with that in mind, you can type in one of your typical blog post headings in the field at the top and see how all the different styles look using that text.
This makes it much easier to visualize it as if it were on your website, as shown in the next picture:
The great thing about using captivating images on your website is that it will open up even more avenues where you can showcase your work. On image- sharing sites such as Pinterest or Tumblr, a great image could be seen and shared hundreds or even thousands of times, each share potentially leading someone back to your website.
The images you choose should be a reflection of the message you're trying to convey. They should also be relatable—if your audience immediately feels an affinity towards them and understands the story you're trying to convey with the image, you'll know you chose well.
If you can make your graphics visually enticing, you could quickly multiply the traffic to your website with a few strategic shares on image-heavy social sites. When creating graphics for your website, ask yourself:
Does the image help me get my message or point across?
If not, change or remove it.
Does the image fit with my overall style?
Consistency and cohesion are key to your overall visual effect, and images play a huge part. Many sites use colored overlays or a particular style of lettering on top of their images, but whatever you do, keep the style going throughout.
Does the image shape match those already in use on my website?
If you are displaying a portfolio of featured blog posts that include a thumbnail picture, it's a good idea to make sure the featured images you upload have the same height and width ratio each time.
If you stray from this, your blogroll can look a little disjointed or out of line, which can detract from the consistency of your website.
There are two meanings to the term image size. The first refers to the width and height dimensions and the second, the file size. Both are important.
You want the images you use on your website to have the smallest file size possible, for the height and width you are using, so they don't slow down your page's loading speed.
To reduce file size, you can save an image at the same width and height, but at a lower resolution, or you can reduce the width and height dimensions and keep the higher resolution. Web images should be at least 72 dots per inch (dpi), but no higher than 300.
The width and height are often referred to by the number of pixels (px). Here are some guidelines you can use for the dimensions of images, for various uses:
Image Type Suggested Width
The sizes in the table above largely depend on the layout of your website pages. If you have a sidebar then you will have less space in the main body of the page, so your images can be slightly smaller.
The first option is to save the image as small as you can, without losing quality, before upload.
This can be done in a photo editing program such as Adobe Elements, Photoshop or Lightroom, using the "Save for web" option and selecting a lower value of image quality in the output settings. You can also use free image editing programs such as RIOT, Gimp or pixlr to do the same job.
The second option is to use a WordPress plugin such as Imagify or WP Smush to optimize your images as you upload them. With this type of plugin, you can be sure your website will not suffer from performance issues due to image file sizes but your images will still display in high quality.
I have a few favorite places I regularly curate photos for my websites from.
Here are a few to get you started:
All the above sites offer completely free photos and usually include the right to modify and use the image as you see fit without even crediting its origins. But make sure to check the licensing for any free photos you use.
Another place to find images is by using Google search, but you must be careful with this method as most images that come up in the search engines can not be used freely elsewhere. Even if a photo does not state its copyright, it is implied by law, so using photos found on Google is likely to get you into the legal hot water if you are found out.
If you're creating blog posts or social media status graphics, I don't believe you need to pay for exclusive images to get your point across.
If you're working on a larger project such as an original eBook or an advertisement for your new product, you'll probably want to upgrade your graphics and go a little more exclusive. If you're not someone who can create their own unique images, this is when premium stock photos are a godsend.
The quality and variety of photos, graphics and even video that you can purchase from stock photo agencies are incredible.
I've never failed to find just the right image that I was looking for on stock photo sites such as iStockphoto.com or shutterstock.com. Prices currently work out at around £8 ($12) per photo, or more if you go for one of their high-end options.
Canva is a fantastic online design tool, found at canva.com. Within Canva you can design your own professional-looking graphics for anything, including Facebook ads, infographics, posters, presentations, and even multi-page eBooks.
They have a huge range of templates to choose as a starting point and if you don't have your own photos to use within your chosen layout, they'll even provide stock photos for $1 each. Here are some of the design templates you could start working within Canva:
With this fabulous array of designs and styles, you never again need to use the excuse, "I'm just not creative". Canva has done the hard work for you, all you have to do is put your words and pictures into the pre-designed templates and you have a fabulous-looking image or PDF you can download and use in your content right away.
Infographics are also in vogue right now because people seem to love statistics—that's facts and figures— presented in picture form.
If you can present complex information in a simplistic manner, more people will look at it and also understand it. Infographics appeal to the masses because of their eye-catching draw.
Don't worry if you don't own any graphics programs for your computer, the online tool, PiktoChart, can make your statistics look impressive in no time.
At piktochart.com you can create graphics and poster-style images that work perfectly with your data. Start with one of their templates and add your own words, icons, and pictures to make it into something quite unique.
Shown below are some of the free starter layouts that PiktoChart provides. You'd be proud to create something like this wouldn't you?
Try it out, it's good fun and people will be genuinely impressed with your efforts. And of course, they'll want to share, which again means more traffic to your website.
With the number of free images and tools available, you've no excuse for having crappy photos or graphics on your website, or anywhere else for that matter.
Write well but don't obsess. Get fresh content out there and don't be anal over every last detail, people will forgive the odd typo. The exception is if it's a formal piece—get that wrong at your peril.
Spend time crafting your headlines as these can draw people in or turn them off in an instant.
To create some attractive headlines for your content, first, make a list of all the questions your ideal customer has. Next, make a list of all the pain points they feel about their current situation. Lastly, write out any positive outcomes and benefits they may feel if they could overcome those problems.
To create your headline, pick out one of the items on your list of questions or one of the pain points and pair it with one of the beneficial outcomes your ideal customer can expect to gain. You've got yourself the beginnings of a headline that will entice your readers to want to read more. It will also have a greater chance of being found in the search engines if you research the types of questions people are actually searching for.
Use Google's keyword planner tool to research the popular search terms for your niche and choose terms that have low or medium competition and a good monthly search volume.
Practice writing headlines that address a question or pain plus the desired outcome and start using these as your blog post titles.
Does it pass the "So what?" test? If your content doesn't deliver an obvious benefit to the reader, rewrite it until it does.
Create with your audience in mind, always. People are me-centric—they only want to know how you can help them, so make sure to deliver.
Write in context. Know the style of publication you're writing for and deliver what's expected.
Split content at natural break points. Use of paragraphs helps your reader to make distinctions and put pauses in the right place.
Add personality in buckets. Help your audience warm to you by writing in conversational style.
Attention, Value, Benefits, Offer. Keep this cycle of messages going and you'll be on track for a winning campaign.
There's a reason good copywriters command large fees—they're worth every penny. If you can master even a fraction of what those who get paid thousands know, you could see a significant increase in your response rate and therefore your earning potential.
Share, Share, Share Again
So you created some great content, you published it on your website. Now what? Your main aim should be to get people to see it, read it, enjoy it, share it and hopefully take action. You did remember to put a call to action at the end, didn't you?
Let's get your content out there and being seen. First of all, copy the URL link of your latest web page or blog post and share it on all your social networks and inside niche groups that you feel the content would be helpful too. Also, share it on professional networks such as LinkedIn and Google+ if the content is appropriate—not everything is suitable.
Using a URL shortening service such as that provided for free at bitly.com also enables you to track where visitors landing on your page came from, which is always good to know.
By examining your traffic statistics, you may notice traffic arriving at your website from certain places you shared content but maybe not from others, so you can step up your marketing on the more successful platforms to keep your momentum going.
If you use great images as part of your content, you can also Pin these images onto one of your Pinterest boards. People often browse Pinterest when they are looking for inspiration for upcoming purchases, which gives you all the more reason to make the most of its potential.
Here are a few facts that might convince you to try Pinterest if you haven't already:
85% of all Pinterest users are female 87% of Pinterest users say they have purchased something they discovered while Pinning. The average order value of sales coming from Pinterest is $50, which is higher than any other major social platform.
With stats like that, Pinterest can't be ignored and has to be worth trying if you are strong with your visuals and can include a good headline, description, and call to action within the image.
Images can of course also be shared on all the social media platforms but are especially suited to places such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.
If you like to create video content, make a short teaser clip and share it on Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and any other platforms you have a presence.
Use appropriate hashtags with each post for an extra boost of organic traffic. Provide a link from the clip to your website, giving a reason or incentive as to why someone should bother clicking through.
Of course, the main place you want to put video content is YouTube. Even if you haven't made a film in the traditional sense, you can record slideshows of the main points from your blog posts using screen capture software. or just get on camera and talk through the post.
Focus on the benefits to the viewer and put a strong call to action near the end of the video and you should see more traffic to your website, especially if you make full use of relevant keywords and tags within your YouTube settings.
Finally, don't forget to embed your YouTube videos onto your website, this will get you extra brownie points for rankings with the search engines and will also bump up your video view stats on YouTube itself, giving you more chance of being discovered over there too
To initiate the visitor capture process, you need to install Facebook's Pixel code on your website. Once in place, this will place a marker against every visitor to your website and is what will allow you to later advertise to those same people with a Facebook Ad campaign.
The pixel—a small piece of code obtained directly from your Facebook page's Audiences page—needs to be placed into the header code of your website. You can obtain this from the following URL (make sure you're logged into Facebook first):
One of my favorite tools is HootSuite, which allows you to schedule posts to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram ahead of time. If you have 3 or less social accounts to post to, it's free to use.
At the time of writing, Instagram doesn't allow automated posting but what HootSuite will do is send you a reminder when your Instagram post is due to go out, and it will place the photo into Instagram and the text into your paste buffer, so that with another couple of taps you can have your latest Instagram published.
Another tool I've had great success with is PostPlanner. This one goes a step extra by allowing you to pre-plan your own content but also to find other people's posts in your chosen niche that have had great engagement.
If you're paying for ads or clicks, you want to make sure to catch your prospective customer's eye. You can do this by using direct shout-outs to them, for example, "Football Dads! Teach Your Son To Play Like Ronaldo Today".
This example headline also uses the basic headline formula of promising a beneficial outcome, and that's what their son could become as nifty as a legendary player.
Speak in the language your audience uses.
If you're really going to get a good click-through rate from your ads, you need to put yourself in your target customer's shoes and speak how they speak.
If you've picked up any phrases that come up over and over when you talk to people about their frustrations or problems around your niche area, use these in your ad description. By using the same language, your audience will identify with you and be more likely to click.
Use colorful pictures.
Images are often what makes or breaks an advertisement. In split tests, where the same ad is created with the same target audience but using different images, there will usually be a clear winner.
However you get your content out there, it's always important to track where the resulting traffic comes from, so that you know which platform brought you the best visitor numbers.
You'll be able to do this more easily if you have a Google Analytics tracking code installed on your website. If you haven't got round to getting this done yet, do it today, it's not too tricky and could prove insightful.
By analyzing your visitor stats and their sources, you will get an understanding of which platforms are reacting best to your content and which format or topic is getting more traffic
What is SEO? It stands for Search Engine Optimisation and good SEO represents a set of easily implemented guidelines you can apply to each page and blog post on your website, to boost your rankings in the search engines.
Within a WordPress website, one of the most highly recommended plugins that will help you achieve good SEO on your content is the Yoast SEO plugin. Here is a quick summary of some of the ways you can improve the SEO of your pages:
Use a title of at most 70 characters, because anything after that won't show up in the search engine title preview.
Use your title again in the first and last paragraph of your blog post of the page and put it inside an H1 or H2 tag somewhere on the page (that's a first or second level heading if you're not familiar with tags such as these). Set the focus keyword to be part of the title of the page.
Add a meta description
This is the short paragraph that will show below your post title in the search engines. It should provide an overview of your post and include a call to action to encourage clicking, which in turn tells Google your post is highly relevant and gives it a boost in the rankings.
Use your focus keyword 3 or 4 more times throughout your post, but make it read naturally—Google is not stupid and will penalize you if you vomit the keyword anywhere and everywhere.
Name your images the same as your post title before you upload them. Use an Alt tag on your images, which also contains the focus keyword. Use short paragraphs and don't use a long word when you can use a shorter one — ease of reading is key.
Write at least 3000 words on each page or post. Include hyperlinks to other articles on your website and/or links to articles on other websites within your post.
If you follow at least 50% of those suggestions for improving your SEO score, you should gain a few ranking positions quite easily. It's worth going back over old posts and seeing how you can make these small improvements, the bonus is getting your content in front of even more people.
The Permalinks setting in WordPress determines the format of your blog post URLs, and this really does matter, so listen up. You may have just done a double take on the previous paragraph. Perma what?
When you install WordPress, the default format of the URL given to each blog post is pretty useless, looking something like this:
If you want to produce one blog post per week, add an idea for each week's post to your planner. If you want to write an email series or a lead magnet, split the overall content into sub-headings and place these in different day's content boxes. Just keep doing this until you have ideas for a whole month or more.
Now when it comes to writing this content, you can either do it all in one day then take the rest of the week off, or maybe plan to create for an hour, three or four times a week until it's done. Use your time wisely to enable you to get your content out but not be chained to the computer all day.
How much time should you spend on content creation? This is not an easy one to answer as it usually depends on the answer to the other question—how much time do you have available? Or more precisely, how much time are you willing to devote to content creation?
If you have a blog and are driving traffic to your articles, one post per week is usually manageable, maybe two or three if you have more time on your hands or if you want to build your business quicker.
Other, more time-consuming content such as a whole new email series or an eBook will take you longer to create but the rewards from it could be far greater.
So if you're short on time or can't make time for more than one good piece of content per week, always choose the one that is going to bring you the best returns.
It may be that you need a set of blog posts written before you can send out your email series that refers to these posts, so you can't do one without the other. Only you will know what you can manage and what should be higher on your priority list.
Once you've spent time getting your content out into the world, you need to figure out if what you're doing is working. Making use of the free Google Analytics visitor tracker will help you do this.
By connecting your website up with this service, you will be able to get insights into where your visitors live, which pages on your website they landed on, which page they went to next and how long they spent browsing your website. All this is critical to know if you want any chance of plotting and planning your success.
Once you know which your best sources of visitor referrals are and what people visiting your website are looking at the most, you can create further similar content and distribute it to the channels you know are proving fruitful.
To set up your website visitor tracking using Google Analytics, go here: https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web
Under the Admin option, you should register a new account for your website. You'll then need to place the Google Analytics tracking code you're given onto your website. This is easiest done by installing the Google Analytics WordPress plugin, found in the plugin directory on your WordPress dashboard.
There's nothing better than a recommendation from someone who has already enjoyed the experience of working with you or buying from you. Setting up a dedicated page of testimonies or adding one or two here and there on your website really speaks volumes.
I mean, if other people are saying how great you are, you must have something going for you, right?
Testimonies can come from you asking for a few sentences on how your product or service helped someone and what they enjoyed the most about the experience, or they can be simple screenshots from social media or text messages.
Why do you think people come to your About page? Is it to learn how many kittens you have or what fancy degree you earned? No. The real reason they visit is to check out if you're worth getting more deeply involved with.
They've come to see what you can offer, whether you and your business are congruent with their values and needs. They're not there to learn your life story. Well, not to start with anyway.
So let's rethink how you can use your About page and let's focus it more on what you can do for your potential customer who has come to see if you're a good fit.
When talking about a client and their successes, describe the reason this person or business came to you in the first place so that readers can relate if they're in a similar situation, show the results they got with your product— graphs and charts are perfect to help understanding—and maybe include a couple of paragraphs from the person to explain the types of success your solution helped bring about. And that's it.
Sharing your expert knowledge and helping people find solutions to their problems is a beautiful way to sell yourself, without selling at all.
Simply demonstrating your abilities can raise your expert status through the roof, especially if you genuinely help people along the way. This can be done with blog posts, video tutorials, audio in the form of podcasts or mp3 downloads, eBooks, courses—the list goes on.
If you can demonstrate your solutions using video, you might also like to turn your teachings into a course. There are some fantastic platforms you can use to sell or even give away courses from, such as Udemy.com or Teachable.com. These sites make it very easy to throw a course together in no time and allow new students to discover your lessons.
Sharing is caring, and caring enables relationship-building, which brings trust and authority. So start creating content that demonstrates your area of expertise and doesn't forget to share.
If you're now racking your brain wondering how on earth you're going to create something good enough to give away on your website, don't worry, you don't need
Use big, bold headings for each blog or section title in your eBook. Choose different fonts for the headings and the main body text and keep them consistent throughout.
Make sure your fonts are readable Test your content on a computer, tablet, and mobile to be sure.
Put a solid, dark border around the edge of all the pages, to draw the eye into the center of the page and to your main content.
Don't go mad with colors unless you know what you're doing. Hot pink might be your favorite color today, but think of those poor people trying to read your document and having hot pink borders etched indelibly onto their eyeballs! Calm, neutral tones work well, blues and greens are easy on the eyes, but it's good to add the occasional flash of color to highlight points as needed.
Use images to enhance your words, but only add them at appropriate places, where they complement the text. Don't just add images for the sake of making it pretty, you'll detract from the text if you go overboard just to fill up space. Your readers are not daft, they will smell a filler a mile off.
List building should be considered a mandatory part of building your online business. Without leads coming in on a regular basis, you don't have many ways to market directly to people who are interested in what you have to offer.
Creating a lead magnet is the easiest way to initiate the trade of email address for useful content so this should be put into place if you don't currently have one.
Use pop-up opt-in forms to gather targeted subscribers using your lead magnet as a trade. The more people on your list, the better your sales figures have the potential to be.
Regular email marketing is the intentional act of turning those people who may be interested in your products or services into loyal customers. Keep your longer-term goal in mind each time you use email marketing to get in touch with your subscribers and remember to deliver value as often as possible.
Write how you speak The quickest way to get to know someone, without being face-to-face, is by writing in your spoken voice. Use the same language you would use in real life, rant if you normally like to rant, swear if you need to!
Just be yourself and your personality will fly off the page, helping the readers who are destined to stay on your list keep receiving, and those who don't suit your ideas to get off your list completely.
Be regular and intentional. Create your content and send it out on a regular schedule, whether that's daily, weekly or even monthly. Keep in mind why you are sending out each email and make it count.
Automate lead magnet delivery and the first few emails in your sequence by using an autoresponder service. It will save you time and you can make money while you sleep. Epic.
One of the most popular free autoresponders is MailChimp. It's cost-free to send regular newsletters to up to 2000 subscribers, so this gives you plenty of time to start building your list, practicing your email marketing techniques and start making sales.
If you want to use the autoresponder features and send out a series of pre-written automated messages, there's a small fee each month but it's totally worth it.
Two other popular autoresponders at the lower end of the cost scale are GetResponse and Aweber. These, as well as MailChimp, are usually the most easily integrated with the popular opt-in services, so I would recommend starting with one of these.
For a free backup solution, I'd recommend a WordPress plugin called BackWPup. This is very easy to set up and will automatically take backups of your whole site—files and database—on a regular basis.
If your website content is changing daily, I'd recommend a daily backup, or less frequently if you're more of an occasional blogger.
Backups from BackWPup can be stored in various locations, including Dropbox, Google Drive or on your website's server.
I wouldn't recommend using the latter because if your site's server goes down, you won't be able to retrieve that backup file to restore your website with.
I tend to use Dropbox for my backups, as it's a place that's always accessible and once the backup schedule is set, I can forget about it. If anything goes wrong with the backup process, you'll receive an email letting you know. If this happens, you can go in and try a manual backup to figure out if there's a problem or if it was a temporary glitch.
Secure your WordPress login Create a new admin username that no one can guess and remove the original admin user.
Keep passwords secure Use strong passwords, containing letters, numbers and special characters and keep them nice and long.
Backups and security are not optional Unless you want to risk losing your website. Deploy both and set to work on autopilot.
Update WordPress and plugins regularly Often, these are the places security loopholes are found, so stay safe and stay up to date. Don't forget to backup first, just in case.
Another couple of plugins you can use to take a backup of a complete website or transfer it to another host or domain are Duplicator and WPClone. Both work extremely well and are as good as manual backup options, should your main backup solution fail.
If you want to start selling digital downloads on your website, there are a number of WordPress plugins that will help you do that very easily. One of the most highly regarded is Easy Digital Downloads, which is free to use and offers all the basic shopping cart and payment functionality to get you started.
Two of the other most popular services for selling goods online are WooCommerce and Shopify. They each have their own merits but both make the process of selling goods online fairly pain-free, which is great news for creative types who don't care to get too technical.
Affiliate programs often supply banner graphics you can use on your website, so all you have to do is paste a simple piece of code into an area on your sidebar or into a blog post, and you're all set to start referring and earning.
Popular places to find affiliate offers in the information or software niche are clickbank.com and jvzoo.com, but if you type into Google search "your-niche affiliate", replacing your-niche with your area of interest, you will usually find other referral programs to look in to.
Invite Google To Advertise In Your Space
This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you have space in your blog's header or sidebar that you don't mind giving up, you could potentially make a few extra notes by installing a Google AdSense or other similar advertising banner. http://google.com/adsense
By selling space on your blog for other people's advertisements, you could earn a tidy sum on the side. However, you will only attract advertisers to pay you to use space on your blog if you can prove your website is getting a certain volume of traffic first.
With that said, offering advertising space may not be for those just setting up a website but it could be worth considering if you're well- established and attracting a higher number of visitors each month.
Not having ventured into this form of advertising myself, I can't give advice on the best places to attract advertisers, but I believe web owners usually set up some sort of media kit to show off their audience statistics and marketability.
It'd probably be helpful to contact influencers in your niche with a short email to introduce yourself and direct them to the opportunities on your website. The more traffic you can get to your website, the higher the fees you will be able to command.
Contacting companies directly is one way to obtain products to review and you may find they will send you items free of charge in return for a full review on your website, but again this may depend on your level of influence.
If you often mention products in your regular blog posts, such as if you're a food blogger and you talk about the best kitchen gadgets or specialist ingredients, you could monetize your blog with affiliate links for those products.
Amazon Affiliates is one such program. By simply sharing a coded hyperlink that takes your reader straight to the product on Amazon, you could start earning commissions from one of the world's most popular online stores. The commissions from Amazon aren't huge, ranging from around 1 to 10%.


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BVI-registered software company Luxoft Holding, Inc. reported financial results for the three and six months ended September 30, 2016. For three months period, US GAAP revenue was US$196.5mln; earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) adjusted for stock based compensation, acquisition related costs and change in fair value of contingent consideration was US$37.4mln. Operating income increased 15.1% sequentially, generating 9.6% margin on a US GAAP basis (9.2% in the previous quarter of 2016). Diluted earnings per share on a US GAAP basis was US$0.48, and US$0.62 on a non-GAAP basis (in the previous quarter of the year US$0.42 and US$0.62, respectively).
For the six months ended September 30, 2016, US GAAP revenue reported by Luxoft Holding was US$374.5mln, which is a year over year increase of 21.0% on the reporting currency basis. Adjusted EBITDA increased 4.5% as compared to the previous year to US. Operating income amounted to US$35.3mln. For the six months period, diluted EPS on a US GAAP basis was US$0.90, and on a non-GAAP basis it was US$1.44.
In the last three months the company added seven high potential accounts (HPAs) from telecom, automotive and healthcare sectors. For the six months ended September 30, 2016, telecom, automotive and transport, and financial services were the strongest performers, providing 61.4%, 54.6%, and 13.5% of revenue growth respectively, compared to the first six months of last year.
For the year ending March 31, 2017, the BVI holding company expects revenue to be at least US$781mln, which is at least 20% higher than the previous year. Diluted EPS is expected to be at least US$2.85.


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Havana, Cuba - Taxis wait for fares near Plaza de la Catedral. Classic American cars from the 1950s, imported before the U.S. embargo, are commonly used as taxis in Havana.
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Casey has been a busy girl since our last post. We met her eye doctor. We had to go to him so we could get a Texas form filled out in order to get her vision services started. He wasn't bad, but he did not compare to Dr. Bill back in LA. Since the eye doctor is a yearly appointment we will keep our original plan of getting her checkups with Dr. Bill while we are in California each year for stem cells. Any state thing we have to get this doctor will be fine, but we were not crazy about him. He pretty much said that everything we were already doing is right. He had nothing additional or new to offer. As far as his beside manner and our impression of his exposure to kids like Casey we were just not that impressed.
Last weekend one of my oldest friends came by with her family. I had not seen her in years. It was really nice to see them and catch up. Her family is growing so fast. Rachel is 14 in April, Avery is already in school, and little Owen was sitting up and full of personality. I have known Becky since early High School years. Somehow she had not even met Tim yet. Every time I have seen her in the past 7+ years for what ever reason Tim was never with me. Becky and her husband, Robert joked that they were starting to think I made Tim up 🙂
Jason and Elizabeth came by today. Elizabeth is just starting to show. We are so happy for them. They are going to have a little girl. No name yet. Casey was really good while they were here. She woke up when she heard them come in and she stayed awake most of the time. She got a little fussy right before they left, but she was hungry so as soon as we plugged her food back in she was back to being happy.It has been really nice being back in Austin where we can spend time with friends. Casey is meeting new people all the time.
We are starting to plan Casey's big 2nd birthday party. It is going to be lots of fun. Since Casey loves elephants I think we are going to have a Horton themed party. I think Casey will have a lot fun. So far a lot of friends and family will be able to come. Even Grandma Barnes is coming all the way from Indiana.
We have a busy couple of weeks coming up. We head to Houston on Friday to meet the last of Casey's doctors. We have a noon appointment with her ortho then plan on heading back to Austin. We are looking forward to meeting the new ortho. Saturday and Sunday we have to get as much done as possible to get ready for visitors and her party later in April. Monday Tim is doing a lunch presentation about his job and travels at my grandparents church. If Casey is up to it we will all go, if not it will just be Tim. Then on the 1st I have to get some more labs done before my surgery scheduled on the 2nd. I am not sure how long I will be on told not to do stuff so I have to get as much done for her party before the 2nd as possible.
I went to see the OB/GYN that did my emergency ectopic back in 2003. When I filled her in on all of the things that have been going on since she was shocked. I told her about the adhesions I have been dealing with since having Casey and that as much as I wanted to get them fixed timing just never worked out. She is getting me in to fix them and while she is in there she is going to tie off my remaining tube. She is actually going to destroy it she said. She said that it is not a good idea for me to get pregnant again. We agree with her (sadly) and know it is best to be sure that we don't put Casey or myself at any additional risk. Before I go in on the 2nd she sent me to GI to get some test run to be sure that the affects of the adhesions had not led to any other complications. Last week I had to go in for a colonoscopy. I was put under (thank goodness) and it was not that bad. I was sore for a couple of day after from where they were a little rough, but other than that it was fine. I have heard the tubal ligation is painful, but I expect it to be a lot like my appendectomy. I should be up and around pretty quick.
We will be pretty busy next weekend so I may not have a chance to post. If not I will post after I recover from my surgery. We hope everyone has a wonderful Easter.


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Is there an IRS requirement that a TIRA trustee must create an inherited TIRA for any named beneficiaries on the death of the original investor?I ask because this now somewhat dated 2004 article suggests that cashing out the IRA might be an option.http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/ira/20041006a1.asp"Cash out the account so it is no longer an IRA. "If you cash out the account, keep in mind that the funds are immediately considered taxable income for that year," Goetting says. She suggests talking with a tax pro before you make this decision, especially if a significant amount of money is involved."I can see where the IRS might want evidence that the MRD for the year of death had been taken even though they clearly get their pound of flesh and then some if the beneficiary converts the TIRA to cash and recognizes it as income.Thanks,baumgrenze
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In today's multichannel world, brands are working with more tactics, and more marketing vendors, than ever before. This poses key issues for evaluating performance. For one, brand managers are often left with no choice but to trust the validity of each agency's self-reporting — subjecting them to internal bias, inconsistent KPIs and a multitude of other issues. Mojo's independent, data-driven performance measurements open the door for accurate vendor and tactic evaluations, and ROI forecasting that brand decision makers can trust.
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Healing that Matters Most
Phase II -C Clinical Trial Produced results depicted below, which show the progression of recovery of a patient diagnosed and treated with LiprostinTM to accelerate the healing on his right leg of an ulcer that would not heal.
Day One
This photo was taken on the date of the original examination of the patient.The patient's ulcer measured 14 inches in length and 5.5 inches in width. The patient had developed drug resistant non-healing ulcer resulting from an injury. On this day, LiprostinTM was administered according to dosage standards established in clinical trails. The patient began a once per week dosage regimen.
Day 90
Thirty weeks later the patient was photographed while continuing the once per week intravenous treatment of LiprostinTM. In this time period, the ulcer shrunk to a size of 3×3 inches.
Day 200
After approximately 30 weeks of weekly tratment, the patient had full mobility and the ucler was completely healed.


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While there is a lot of visibility and awareness surrounding breast cancer, the disease continues to strike thousands of women. In fact, in 2008, more than a quarter of a million new cases were diagnosed.
But the news isn't all bad. Five-year survival rates among women with localized breast cancer are at an all-time high of 98%. With more and more cancer survivors, many physicians and researchers are now focusing on long-term outcomes and symptoms related to breast cancer, and key among these is fatigue.
The Physical and Emotional Drain of Breast Cancer
Exhaustion or fatigue is considered to be one of the most common and debilitating effects of breast cancer.[1] It is understandable that exhaustion frequently accompanies cancer treatments, but few people realize that nearly one-third of breast cancer survivors continue to experience moderate to severe fatigue 12 months or longer after treatment.[2]
The fatigue is often all-encompassing and not alleviated by rest. It can negatively impact a woman's job, home life, social interaction and basic quality of life.
Fortunately, exercise has been demonstrated to help reduce fatigue among cancer patients. And one form of exercise — yoga — has been shown to significantly help ease persistent fatigue in cancer survivors.
Based on this, researchers from UCLA looked at one particular form of yoga to determine if it could alleviate fatigue in breast cancer survivors specifically.[3]
Therapeutic Poses Reduce Fatigue
Researchers asked 12 non-smoking women aged 45 to 65 who had originally been diagnosed with Stage 0–II breast cancer to take a 90-minute yoga class twice a week for 12 weeks. None of the women had taken yoga regularly in the past.
The researchers focused on Iyengar yoga for the practice. Iyengar yoga is a form of the more common Hatha yoga. It uses a combination of specific poses, or asanas, and breathing techniques. Iyengar yoga also utilizes props such as straps, blocks, blankets, etc., to help the practitioner get into and hold a pose without concern for stress or tension on the body.
Researchers found that, after 12 weeks of practicing yoga, the women experienced a significant improvement in fatigue, with the average score on the Fatigue Symptom Inventory going from an average of 6.3 (out of 10) down to 2.7. The women also experienced significant improvements in both mood and pain.
Best of all, improvements were maintained in all three areas for three months after the yoga intervention.
Researchers concluded, "These results support the acceptability of this intervention and suggest that it may have beneficial effects on persistent post-treatment fatigue."
Grab Your Mat!
If you or someone you know is a breast cancer survivor, encourage them to give yoga a try. Better yet, show the ultimate support and join them!
Most health centers offer yoga classes, and more and more yoga studios are opening every day. If you prefer an at-home practice, there is a wide variety of yoga books and DVDs that you can purchase. Just be sure to have at least two or three "live" instructor sessions first to make sure you are doing the poses correctly and safely.
[1] Jacobsen, PB and Stein, K Is fatigue a long-term side effect of breast cancer treatment? Cancer Control. 1999;6(3):256–63.
[2] Bowe, JE, et al. Fatigue in breast cancer survivors: occurrence, correlates, and impact on quality of life. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2000;18(4):743–53.
[3] Bower, JE et al. Yoga for persistent fatigue in breast cancer survivors: Results of a pilot study. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. Epub 2011 Jan 13.