Thoughts and visualization a powerful combination against negativity

 

Thoughts and visualization a powerful combination against negativity

Word Count:
526

Summary:
Our thoughts not only determine who we are but also what we can be. We are bombarded by negativity from many sources during our waking hours, so much so, that we accept negative thoughts as the norm and pay little attention to the fact that negativity controls our lives. The first step in changing negative thought to positive thought is to be aware of what we are thinking.

Keywords:
Thoughts, visualization, negative thoughts, negative thinking, positive thoughts, positive thinking, negativity, mind and thought, thinking, visualization,

Article Body:
You are your thoughts, All that arises, arises from our thoughts, We make the world with our thoughts. - Buddha.

There is a Hindu story about a man, lost in a forest, who, late in the night, comes across an abandoned house. When he enters the one room building, he is sees a small cot highlighted by the light of the moon. As he lays down to rest, he notices in the dim light, a chair in the far corner and on the chair - a small coil - a snake. The stranger stays as quiet and motionless as possible. Several times he thought the snake was beginning to slither and hiss - his heart pumps faster and faster - he has trouble breathing.

With the dawn, the owner of house returns and finds the stranger dead.

He removes the coil of rope from the chair and goes about preparing the body for cremation.

That may be an extreme example, but the story illustrates the power of our thoughts - we are what we think and many people think the worst. Much of the problem is caused by the blanket of negativity that covers us everyday of our lives  - the doom-boom in today's media, pessimistic friends, unenthusiastic colleagues and the worst source of all - ourselves.

A recent study in the United States shows that Americans spend three days out of ten in a bad mood - all that negativity. The problem is we never take the time to be aware of our thoughts, we allow the river of negativity to constantly flow through our minds.

The first step in building a dam to stop this flow of negative thought is be aware of your thoughts - you must make a determined effort to take notice when you think in the negative. To help you become more aware of your negative thinking, for several days - carry a notepad and pencil and jot down all your negative thoughts - find out how many times your thought process has to deal with negativity during your waking hours - if you are honest in your note-taking, you will likely be surprised and alarmed.

Once you have taken this first step to be aware of your negative thoughts, you can use the art of visualization as the cement to hold the negativity dam together - with visualization you're setting up a powerful see and think one-two punch for positive thinking.

Example - if you're at your computer as you read this, look down at your keyboard. First, zero in to the delete key. - focus hard - burn the picture of the delete key into you mind. Think about deleting negative thoughts.

Next, focus on the control key on your computer keyboard - control for taking control of your life.

Use the theater of your mind to help you switch from negative to positive. Remember,be aware to your thoughts then control them though visualization - repetition and persistence is the key to positive thinking.

We become what we believe. - Sanskrit proverb

 

The Secret Benefit Of Accessibility Part 2: A Higher Search Engine Ranking

 

The Secret Benefit Of Accessibility Part 2: A Higher Search Engine Ranking

Word Count:
1116

Summary:
How a website optimised for accessibility helps it achieve a high search engine ranking.

Keywords:
usability, accessibility, web usability, web credibility, web accessibility, css, website, accessible web design

Article Body:
An additional benefit of website accessibility is an improved performance in search engines. The more accessible it is to search engines, the more accurately they can predict what the site's about, and the higher your site will appear in the rankings.

Not all of the accessibility guidelines will help with your search engine rankings, but there are certainly numerous areas of overlap:

1. ALT descriptions assigned to images

Screen readers, used by many visually impaired web users to surf the web, can't understand images. As such, to ensure accessibility an alternative description needs to be assigned to every image and the screen reader will read out this alternative, or ALT, description.

Like screen readers, search engines can't understand images either and won't take any meaning from them. Many search engines can now index ALT text though, so by assigning ALT text search engines will be able to understand all your images.

2. Text displayed through HTML, not images

Text embedded in images appears pixelated, blurry and often impossible to read for users utilising screen magnifiers. From an accessibility point of view this should therefore be avoided.

Search engines equally can't read text embedded in images. Well, you can just give the image some ALT text, right? Unfortunately, there's strong evidence to suggest search engines assign less importance to ALT text than they do to regular text. Why? Spammers. So many webmasters have been stuffing their ALT tags full of keywords and not using them to describe the image. Search engines have cottoned on to this form of spamming (as they eventually do every form of spamming) and have taken appropriate action.

3. Descriptive link text

Visually impaired web users can scan web pages by tabbing from link to link and listening to the content of the link text. As such, the link text in an accessible website must always be descriptive of its destination.

Search engines place a lot of importance on link text too. They assume that link text will be descriptive of its destination and as such examine link text for all links pointing to any page. If all the links pointing to a page about widgets say 'click here', search engines can't gain any information about that page without visiting it. If on the other hand, all the links say, 'widgets' then search engines can easily guess what that page is about.

One of the best examples of this in action is for the search term, 'miserable failure'. So many people have linked to George Bush's bio using this phrase as the link text, that now when miserable failure is searched for in Google, George Bush's bio appears top of the search rankings!

4. Website functions with JavaScript disabled

JavaScript is unsupported by about 9% of web users  either because they've turned it off (for example to prevent pop-up adverts) or because their browser doesn't support it. Many forms of JavaScript aren't accessible to web users utilising screen readers.

Search engines can't understand JavaScript either and will be unable to index any JavaScript-driven content. Perhaps more importantly, they'll also be unable to follow JavaScript-driven links. You may really like the look of your dropdown menu but search engines won't if they can't access certain pages on your site because there aren't any regular links pointing at them.

5. Alternatives to Flash-based content provided

Flash, like JavaScript, isn't accessible to many users, including those using screen readers. Equally, search engines can't access Flash so be sure to provide equivalents.

6. Transcripts available for audio

Hearing impaired users obviously require written equivalents for audio content to be able to access it. Search engines too can't access this medium, but transcripts provide them with a large amount of text for them to index.

7. Site map provided

Site maps can be a useful tool for visually impaired users as they provide a straightforward list of links to the main pages on the site, without any of the fluff in between.

Site maps are also great for search engines as search engines can instantly index your entire site when they arrive at the site map it. Next to each link you can also provide a short keyword-rich preview of the page. All links should, of course, be made through regular HTML and not through JavaScript (see 4. above).

8. Meaningful page title

When we arrive at web pages the first thing that appears, and the first thing that visually impaired users hear, is the page title. This latter group of web users don't have the privilege of being able to quickly scan the page to see if it contains the information they're after, so it's essential that the page title effectively describes the page content.

If you know anything about search engine optimisation you'll know that the page title is the most important attribute on the page. If it adequately describes the content of that page then search engines will be able to more accurately guess what that page is about.

9. Headings and sub-headings used

Visually impaired web users can scan web pages by tabbing from heading to heading, in addition to tabbing from link to link (see 3. above). As such, it's important for accessibility to make sure that headings are correctly marked up by using h1, h2 etc.

Search engines assume that the text contained in heading tags is more important than the rest of the document text, as headings describe the content immediately below them. Make sure you use the heading tags properly and don't abuse them, as the more text you have contained in heading tags, for example, the less importance search engines assign to them.

10. CSS used for layout

Screen readers can more effectively work through the HTML code of CSS-based sites as there's a greater ratio of content to code. Websites using CSS for layout can also be made accessible to in-car browsers, WebTV and PDAs. Don't underestimate the importance of this - in 2008 alone there'll be an estimated 58 million PDAs sold worldwide

Search engines also prefer CSS-based sites and are likely to score them higher in the search rankings because:

 The code is cleaner and therefore more accessible to search engines
 Important content can be placed at the top of the HTML document
 There is a greater density of content compared to coding

Conclusion

With all this overlap between web accessibility and search engine optimisation there's no excuses for not implementing basic accessibility on to your website. It'll give you a higher search engine ranking and therefore more site visitors.

 

Adsense- A Reality Check : How To Identify The Best Adsense Support Programs To Accelerate Your Income

 

Adsense- A Reality Check : How To Identify The Best Adsense Support Programs To Accelerate Your Income

Word Count:
683

Summary:
With so many newer Google Adsense related programs sprouting up daily, the adsense publisher needs to have a quick system to identify and pick out those that can work for him or her. What are the ways to perform a reality check on the various claims of these offers that come through the email box? How can I identy the best adsense publishing support programs that are of benefit to the adsense publisher?

Keywords:
adsense, adsense publisher, adsense membership, reality check,private label rights, mentor, content website, niche finder

Article Body:
The Google Adsense program is growing in popularity as a win-win program for everyone involved. As an advertising platform,advertisers get a targeted  audience who really buy the services and products, adsense publishers get paid for displaying ads in their content sites, and Google itself keeps on rolling out good functional features that keep the program growing.

It is no wonder that the Google Adsense program has led to a flurry of adsense related activities and programs.

Daily, I get a fair share of emails on programs related to adsense coming into my email box. Never a day goes by where I do not see an email advertising the latest membership site limited to 500 or 1000 people on exclusive Private Label Rights that can be used as content for adsense websites or for promotion to the article depositories or for compilation into reports to drive traffic. Weekly, I receive emails from some gurus' who are promoting another software that has the ability to generate hundreds and  thousands of pages within minutes suitable for infusion with adsense. Seldom do I see a day goes by where I do not see an offer to buy a package of ready made websites with affiliate programs attached...and of course, with google adsense.

In the heat of the moment and admist the popularity of the Google Adsense program, it is important to have a reality check. Not all programs are genuine, or no matter how genuine they are, some of them are unable to stay the course and fold up pretty fast especially where they have a dwindling number of members, as members do get bored staying with a membership and run away to join the next membership site promising all the goodies in just a matter of months!

Now, when you next receive a program relating to Adsense and to create your own Adsense Empire within the month, perform a reality check. Some questions that may help are:

1. Are the promises in the offer outlandish and just a slick of posh copywriting and advertising?

2. Who are the originators of the program? Are they some well known established marketers who are well regarded in their field of expertise?

3. Is the program limited to a reasonable number of people so that circulation of their Private Label rights articles and ebooks is controlled to avoid superflous duplication?

4. Is the program designed to allow you to grow your business as a adsense publisher or is the program designed to increase your income from adsense only "very fast" with some doubtful technology,including some hidden "technology" , including a hint of black hat "search-engine-optimisation" techniques which are against the Terms of Service of Google Adsense?

5. Are you personally willing to spend the time and commit to the program to make it a success or are you just attracted by the special offers included in the program advertised, knowing fully well you are unable to provide the commitment to make the program a success?

6. Is the program "mentor-based" to teach you the process of how to be a successful adsense publisher or is it to provide just the tools for the trade? This is important to ensure you are selecting a program that meets your needs.

In the end, the underlying reason for your participation in the Google Adsense program should be for you to be reasonably compensated as an adsense publisher who provides quality website content and not just any website junk.

Perform your reality check on any offers that come through your email box relating to Google Adsense and avoid being scammed or short-changed when the operator of the program runs out of you, and suddenly disappears to a tropical island somewhere in Asia for "vacation" and closes his program down unannounced, leaving his members in a lurch.

In case you think this is far fetched, this really happened recently...and so a reality check is necessary to weed out the wheat from the chaff. Protect yourself with a reality check the next time you get that special offer through your email box and you will be safe rather than be sorry.