First, let me explain when procrastination obviously doesn’t work.

If you do not have solid personal systems for calendaring and dealing with the flow of information into your life, then when you procrastinate you are depending on your mind to remind you of when it is time to do things. This is a problem because your mind will remind you of things at inappropriate times and inappropriate places. You will miss appointments and miss responsibilities. For those who do not have solid personal systems, procrastination is a very, very bad idea.

However, for those who have a solid calendaring system and the accountability to follow through on that schedule, procrastination is a very valuable and necessary tool. The person who doesn’t procrastinate or schedule low priorities into the distant future ends up running headlong into what we call the Truth of Time.

The Truth of Time says that there are only 24 hours in a day. If you do not procrastinate low priority items by scheduling them into the future, you will always be short on time and find yourself stressed out at the end of every day wondering if you really accomplished anything at all.

You must have three things in place in order for procrastination to be your ally:

• A calendar that you have with you at all times – Never commit to doing something without scheduling it into your calendar. The calendar is your budget for time, and when your time is gone, it’s gone. Double scheduling is not an option. You must always have your calendar on hand, because it shows you how much time you have available. The calendar, in fact, forces appropriate procrastination because it helps you be realistic with how much time you really have. One final note: always leave spaces between appointments for the unexpected.

• A time-based task list that you have with you most of the time – If the calendar is rigid, then the task list is fluid. Only put items that are brief and not time sensitive in your task list. Task list items must be brief, because if they are lengthy to complete, you’ll never find the time for them. Task list items also must not be time-sensitive, since you are going to be a bit flexible as to when your complete them. While tasks that go to the task list should be assigned an estimated “do date”, if you don’t do them on the date specified, it’s okay. (If it wouldn’t be okay to do it later, then it belongs on the Calendar, not the task list!)

• A “Perhaps List” that you review periodically – David Allen calls this his “Someday, Maybe” list. Whatever you call it, this is the place where the tasks and ideas you haven’t yet committed to do should go. To make the Perhaps List work, you must schedule an appointment for yourself in your calendar that tells you to check the list on a consistent basis. I check mine once a month. I quickly scan through the list I’ve created in Microsoft Outlook and look for any of the items that I’m ready to pick up and take action on at this time. Usually, I pick up very few new tasks, if any. The Perhaps List is a great way for me to say no to myself and keep focused on the priorities at hand.

About the Author:
Dave Crenshaw, time-management expert and author of The Myth of Multitasking: How ‘Doing it All’ Gets Nothing Done. Check out our small business coaching tips and learn how to become more productive on his productivity coaching website.

Organic optimization is fundamental to a successful website.

Completing Organic Search Optimization Programs ensures web design elements are completed correctly and accessible to both Search Engines and humans.

Organic Optimization is remarkably similar to other Organic products — naturally good for the consumer — this holds true when the term Organic is used in reference to web promotion and design.

Naturally Optimized web sites focus on elements important to humans, completed correctly and the beneficial effects flow onto Search Engines as a matter of course.

Organic Optimization and Keywords
Looking at keywords and phrases from the “Natural” perspective make it quite clear the importance of high quality keyword research. Completion of a comprehensive keyword research program will provide an extensive list of keywords used by Internet users to find your business’s services and products.

Consider keyword phrases, an example may be “Electric Bass Guitars.” When considering that keyword phrase is it not natural Internet users will use that phrase when using Search Engine to discover a web site relevant to that topic?

Taken a step further, “Electric Bass Guitar Sales Online”, now you are really naturally targeting users who are thinking along those lines and seeking to purchase Electric Bass Guitars online. The thought processes are natural, both humans and Search Engines will quickly determine a web pages’s topic and relevance.

Organic Search Optimization and Content
Natural integration of keywords into web content is the real power of Organic Search Optimization. Well developed content naturally using keywords and phrases captures the attention of site visitors.

Providing content is well written and using keywords and phrases naturally, ensures content is readable and easy to interpret. Overuse of keyword phrases within content to fool Search Engines doesn’t work making the content difficult and unnatural to read. Search Engines and humans are very sophisticated and are capable of determining when over use of a keyword or phrase occurs.

Human nor Search Engine like spamming, and both penalize web site owners for the over and unnatural use of keywords in website content.

Navigation and Organic Search Optimization
Website navigation designed for human use should offer visitors intuitive methods to navigate web sites and find content important to them. A component important to Search Engines and Humans are the web site’s link labels.

Internal web site links utilizing keyword Anchor Text offers easy identification of what users will find upon clicking the web site link. Anchor text links provide Search Engines with information to determine web page topic and relevance.

What works for Search Engine crawlers to index web pages for categorization and placement in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), doesn’t necessarily work for humans.

When considering natural and web design, HTML is the core web site programming language, anything other than HTML may be considered a highbred. JavaScript is widely used for web site navigation however, JavaScript navigation although working well for humans, is not Search Engine friendly and may block Search Engine indexing software. If web sites cannot be indexed the web site will not be found in the SERPs.

Google has improved the ability to index JavaScript navigation systems but it has not been perfected.

The Other Natural Elements
Organic Optimization requires all web site elements to work together.

The Organic Search Optimization Content Structure
Developing the web page content structure is not much than the structure used to write business reports. Headings are important to identify topics and importance. Web Page code the tags H1, H2 etc are used to create headings to identify the topic and importance Search Engines and Humans.

Description META Tags are used for the snippet in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). A short well written description including calls to action and the keyword phrase will encourage links to be clicked.

Organic Search Optimization – Conclusion
Organic Search Optimization is beneficial to business due to its effectiveness in creating a user focused web site. Add to the fact that over 80% of Internet users click on an Organic search result prior to a paid result and Organic Search Optimization should be prioritized in your business’s online marketing strategy. Organically Search Optimization offers long term benefits and results.

About the Author:
Pete Hollier is an Information Scientist and Web Site Promotion Consultant at http://www.seowizardry.ca/. SEO Wizardry uses a holistic approach to Search Engine Optimization, Web Design Usability and Social Media Marketing to improve the overall business web site performance: http://www.seowizardry.ca/.

Creative Thirst, a conversion rate optimization firm, has released a free eBook on how to increase your landing page conversion rates. The free ebook is filled with real-world examples of how to make landing pages more effective, boost online marketing results, and improve website conversions.

The key to a successful conversion rate optimization strategy is knowing what to improve in order to maximize your results not your budget.

The homepage is not designed for website conversion, but rather as a central hub to satisfy every user type. As a result, many online marketers are flushing away thousands of dollars on pay per click ads each month.

With rising search engine marketing costs, online marketers need to focus on maximizing their return on investment with a better performing website, not more traffic.

Designing specific landing pages to satisfy both business and customer goals is one recommended focus. Traffic directed from individual marketing campaigns is better at increasing marketing results than other web pages, because the design approach can zero in on the motivation of the visitor. User motivation from a specific channel, such as a keyword search is always much higher than other traffic channels.

Bobby Hewitt, president of Creative Thirst, LLC, explains, “The key to a successful conversion rate optimization strategy is knowing what to improve in order to maximize your results not your budget. Let your competitors concentrate on the tools, while you concentrate on measurable results that you can bring to the next staff meeting.”

For more tips on increasing your website conversion rates, and to download the free ebook, visit the Creative Thirst website, http://www.creativethirst.com.

Step One: Open a Yahoo Answers Account

You will need a Yahoo Answers account to be able to answer open questions. To create your account visit:

http://answers.yahoo.com

You will be able to create your account using your current Yahoo messenger account if you already have an ID:

Step Two: Complete Your Profile

Once you have created a Yahoo Answers account and are logged in, you will be able to create or edit your profile. You should take a few minutes to fill out as much as information as you would like to share and then save your information.

You can choose to allow Yahoo Answer members to contact you via messenger, or keep this information private. You can also enable email contact if you would like to receive comments via email, or you can choose to disable all contact other than through the questions that you answer.

When you edit your profile it is recommended that you add a photo or customize an avatar. It’s important to brand yourself and this is an easy way to make your profile more memorable as your photo will appear within your answers.

Step Three: Familiarize Yourself With Yahoo Answers

From the main Yahoo Answers page you will see categories listed on the left hand side.  This is where questions are posted and grouped according to their subject matter. This is also where you will go when choosing the different types of questions that you would like to answer, and depending on the niche markets that you are involved in, you might find yourself answering a variety of questions from different categories and groups

Before you start answering questions you should have an idea of what you plan to promote. That way you can find questions that are relevant to the website that you wish to advertise via the Yahoo Answers website. Each time you answer a question, you can include a “source” in a secondary box that accompanies your response. This is an easy way to promote your websites and direct people to find out more information about the topic of their question.

You should also browse previously answered questions so that you can get a feel for the way other people have answered and addressed different questions, paying attention to those answers that were selected as being the top response.

As you begin answering questions, you may run into a series of questions that are no longer open.  Here is a breakdown of the life cycle of a question from the time it is first posted:

Questions that are resolved are typically closed from receiving future follow ups while questions that are marked undecided have not yet received a top vote.

Questions are open for only four days but the original poster can extend the period for a few extra days; if a question has been resolved, they can close it before that time period has ended.

It’s important to answer questions as thoroughly as you can, and avoid spamming within your answers. In fact, there are few times where including your website URL within the answer isn’t acceptable at all. If those viewing your response feel that it is spam you will not receive votes and your answer may be removed entirely. Therefore, you should try to keep your websites within the source box only. Those who liked your answer are likely to follow your link to find out more especially if you are careful to answer questions that pertain to your niche market.

Start Promoting!

Due to the large number of people answering questions every minute of the day, it is important that you are quick when responding to open questions. As mentioned above, you must also do your best to answer the question as thoroughly as possible and be sure to address the person who posted the question by name (whenever possible). This has been known to increase your chances of being voted as best answer since the original poster feels that you are taking your time to address them personally.

Quick Tip: There is a built in spell checker available. Use it whenever possible to minimize spelling errors.

Remember that the ultimate goal is to be selected as the best answer (Top Answer) because the more often you are selected the more exposure your answer, profile and website will receive.

For detailed traffic tips and techniques, check out http://www.YahooAnswersGuide.com

If you aren’t familiar with a Tag Cloud, you probably should become familiar with it very quickly.

It can actually help you and your blog’s subscribers find what they are looking for on your blog. In fact, having one on your blog can also help you with SEO since the tags will popup automatically as content on your pages as the crawlers search through your pages.

But first, let’s answer the question of “what is a tag cloud”? You’ve probably seen tons of them and haven’t even realized it. If you look at the right hand lower corner of this blog, you’ll notice a section entitled, “Label Cloud”. I named it “Label” because that is the term that BlogSpot uses for tagging up a blog. Under that title, you’ll find a bunch of words in various font sizes. The more popular the word (meaning, the more we’ve written about the word on this blog) the larger the font appears to be for that word. If you click on the word, it’s the same as saying, “find me all blogs that have this word specified in the keywords (synonymous with label and tag) assigned to the blog entry”.

Keywords, labels, tags, oh my…these are the ways in which users will find your blogs, either via organic searches on search engines or through searches on sites like technorati (another site you should become very familiar with, if you haven’t already).

Alright, so you understand that you tag (label or assign keywords to) your blog so that people can find it much more easily, right? You also add a tag cloud or label cloud to your blog to help readers see which words you’ve blogged about a lot. So, what does this all have to do with TwitScoop?

Well, TwitScoop works similarly, in the sense that it provides you with a cloud of words that are currently popular on Tweets currently occurring on all of Twitter.com. The bigger the word appears (font wise), the more popular the term happens to be. Pretty cool huh?

I know, I know…you’re probably thinking…SO WHAT!!! How does that help me get more followers to my website?

Well, think about it for a second. If you follow TwitScoop for a few days and realize that there are a few things that people keep mentioning, then perhaps those are the things that you can be adding in your blogs. I’m not saying that you should use those words in your tagging or labeling if you really aren’t discussing it in your blogs. But for example, you are running a political blog, and the majority are constantly talking about gas pricing rising and falling and how they’re affecting the economy, that’s a great connection. Discussing it in your blog is sure to bring more followers to your blog when they perform organic searches because you’re discussing the things that they’re interested in. And since you already know that these are the popular topics (based on the algorithm performed by TwitScoop), you’re almost guaranteed to find new subscribers for your blog.

And to make matters easier, TwitScoop even provides a Gadget for Vista users. Add it to your Gadget bar, click on the Gadget, and out pops a window showing you the currently discussed keywords. Copy or write them down, follow them for a few hours or even days, and you’ve got new topics to write about.

Good luck and let me know if it works for you.

Ken Ramirez is the founder of Axsys Technology Group, a website hosting, website design, and e-marketing company. Ken often lectures about social media marketing, hosting, website design, and many related technologies. Ken can be reached at ken (dot) ramirez (at) axsystechgroup (dot) com.

Thanks for reading our article and we hope you are following us on Twitter. Look for AxsysTechGroup:

You can also find us on FaceBook, at http://facebook.axsystechgroup.com.

Internet Marketing offers limitless opportunities for income creation by accessing the power of the World Wide Web.

With access to the online masses, you have the potential to reach an unimaginably immense audience with your products, marketing and promotions. But how do you begin to tap into the power of the internet?

PPC, or pay-per-click ads, although popular, are expensive. Used incorrectly, these can result in a tremendous loss of money and the traffic can dry up as soon as the investment capital does. Enter article marketing ‚ a free way to reach thousands of people very quickly, bringing long-term traffic to your website on a daily basis.

So what is article marketing?

Put simply, article marketing is the writing of free articles that point back to your website or product. These articles are submitted to article directories across the internet, and from there they can be used by other people for content on their websites, with the condition that your author bio box remains in tact.  This is the true beauty of article marketing ‚a few minutes of your time can yield months of results!

Lets look at the basics.

An article is approximately one page of text, using Microsoft Word. Articles generally contain between 400 and 700 words, and are informative and helpful to the target audience. You can find word count programs on the internet. My favorite is: http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/countwords.shtml – you paste your article into the box, click ‚Calculate Words, and it immediately tells you how many words are in your article. You can even take the code from this site and put it onto your own website and it’s completely free.

When writing articles, stick to topics you know well. Or find an article similar to the one you want to write, read it a couple of times, and then rewrite it entirely using your own words.  You can also get some ideas from several articles, and then combine them into a totally new article.  You can even purchase PLR (private label rights) articles and use them on your site as-is, or alter them and submit them to article sites (be careful with this one ‚you must change them enough to be unrecognizable from the original, or you will be flagged for duplicate content).

To get your articles circulating on the internet, these are the most important sites available: http://ezinearticles.com, http://goarticles.com, and http://www.articledashboard.com

These three, in my experience, have the most users and the most clout with Google.  They are all free to register with and submit articles to.  Just be sure to follow their rules (especially EzineArticles), to keep from having your account suspended or your articles rejected.

Finally, make sure you create a bio box that will draw readers to your site.  Your author bio should give a little info about you and give the reader incentive to come to your site.  This is where the traffic comes from, and the amount of traffic good articles can generate will blow you away!  Write useful articles, and you will find ezines and websites beginning to publish your articles, bringing in more traffic from their readers/visitors.

So what are you waiting for?  Go write your first article, and get that traffic flowing!