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Friday, April 29, 2011

5 Unique Ways To Get Backlinks

5 Unique Ways To Get Backlinks
Getting a ton of quality backlinks can take forever and most people just don’t have the time or patience to wait that long. There are many great ways to get backlinks such as; blog commenting, forum posting, article submissions, social bookmarking and guest posting, but the problem with these backlink building methods is that you will end up spending too much time away from your site and more importantly your readers. Wouldn’t it be nice if getting backlinks could be set on autopilot?

Great news, there is a way you can set your link building on autopilot that only requires you to do a minimal amount of upfront work. Before I get into the methods that will put your link building on autopilot I want to make sure you understand that this entire method revolves around good quality content.

Remember, “Content is king”!
1. Utilize Yahoo Answers

If you have been building backlinks to your site then I bet you know that Yahoo Answers is really a No-Follow site, right? Well to tell you the truth, it is, but that isn’t the reason you want to post answers on Yahoo Answers. The reason you need to post on Yahoo Answers is because there is a piece of software out there called WP Robot that when placed on a blog has a tool that pulls Yahoo Answers off Yahoo and places it on their site.

Do you get why this is beneficial for you?

Getting links is not that tough. All you have to do is answer questions that have a descriptive title such as, “How do I make money online?” or “How can I lower my car insurance premiums?”. The reason you need to answer questions with a large niche in the title such as making money online, insurance, weight loss or whatever is so you have more people pulling Answers from Yahoo onto their site.
2. Create A Multiple Series List

There are a few reasons to create a multiple series list and all three reasons combined work very well to get backlinks and traffic. The first reason multiple series lists work is because readers can follow along better with a list, they are just easier to scan and make learning less complicated. The other reason why multiple series lists get more backlinks is because people love to link to lists and the more lists you have the more backlinks you will get.

Example: If you write a 3 part series titled, “15 ways to get more traffic through Facebook” I would be a fool to only link to one part on my blog, so instead I would need to link to all three. I don’t know about you but I would much rather have three links pointing to my site as opposed to just one.
3. Add Information To Wikipedia

This is something I tested a while back and it works beautifully. Wikipedia is the biggest online encyclopedia and has over 3 million articles just in the English language. This is why finding a page to edit is very easy to do.

Here is how it works, you first need to find a page that can use some editing (I recommend finding a page that doesn’t have a lot of content but has a decent foundation to go off of). Once you have found the page you want to edit and that relates to your site you need to make sure that you have an identical topic on your site so that you have a reason to link to your site.

Example of identical topics: If you had a site about blogging then I great page to edit would be the page of Problogger, Darren Rowse(considering you had something new to add). Now in order to make it every more closely related I would try to get an interview with Darren that way I could fill in some missing parts to his Wikipedia page. After I have done that I can edit the page, insert my website link and wait.

Something that you must know is that like Yahoo Answers Wikipedia is a No Follow site so the entire point of using Wikipedia to get people to see the article on your site and link to that instead of the actual Wikipedia page.
4, Exchange Site Links For Content

Something that I have done quite a bit for my niche websites is exchange site links for written content. This isn’t guest posting, this method involves a site owner placing a link back to your site in order for you to write a specified number of articles.

The reason this works is because site owners want to get more content whether it is to submit to article directories, sell or just put on their site. I know this may not make a lot of sense to you now but it will. If you spend enough time on forums then you will notice that not everyone wants to buy content for a decent price, so all you have to do is tell the person wanting to buy the article that you will write 1 article each month in exchange for 1 link on their site. Trust me, people like to do this.
5. Give Away A Gift

My favorite way to get backlinks is to actually put out some link bait(AKA give away a gift). The link bait I always put out is a $25 gift card for Amazon.com. Everybody wants to get the free gift card so I tell my readers that all they have to do is link to my site and they will be entered into the drawing for the $25 gift card.

How I set it up: Since I want to get traffic and not only links I make the requirement that in order to be entered into the drawing the linking site needs to send at least 5 visitors having all different IP addresses and anything over 5 will count as another entry into the drawing. Think about it, if you only get 3 links from quality sites it would probably cost you around $200 per month for those links, but instead you only pay $25 with the hopes that the site owner keeps your link up for the chance to win another gift in the coming months.

The biggest different between these 5 unique link building methods and the normal link building methods is the fact that these are a more set and forget type thing while the others have to be catered to constantly.

One-Way Backlinks 3 Ways to Build One Way Backlinks

One-Way Backlinks 3 Ways to Build OneWay Backlinks
Of all the various ways to boost your blog’s or website’s ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs), one-way backlinks are amongst the most important and most valuable SEO techniques to use. There are three common techniques for generating backlinks to your sites and blogs, and each has it’s own place in your traffic generation strategy.

Hiring An SEO Firm To Get You Backlinks:

The first is paying an SEO company to get them for you – this can be hit and miss based on which companies you use, but in time you can find and stick with a good one.

Benefits: Doesn’t take up much of your time – you’re on to other projects while they get you your links. Drawbacks: Can be very expensive to get links from good PR sites, and paid ads on sites with high Page Rank are overly expensive for most marketers.

Article Marketing To Get You BackLinks:

Second is article marketing – the reliable old way to get your name out there, establish your credibility and generate a lot of one-way backlinks to your sites. There are hundreds, if not thousands of article directories out there just waiting for your articles, and you can build a ton of backlinks over time both from your articles being at the directories, and from people using your articles on their sites and blogs.

Benefits: Unlimited number of links can be generated, both by writing and submitting more articles and by submitting your articles to more directories. It also gives you a chance to prove yourself an expert in your field, and build a reputation amongst the other marketers in your niche. And it’s free if you do the work yourself. Disadvantages: Not everyone is a good writer, has the time to research & write article content, or can think up enough topics to keep a steady stream of new articles rolling out. Outsourcing your article submissions saves a lot of time but is expensive, while submitting articles yourself takes a lot of time if you want wide exposure.

Blog Commenting To Generate One-Way Backlinks:

The newest of the three common ways to get one-way backlinks is by commenting on blogs within your niche. Not just any blogs, though – WordPress uses a ‘no-follow’ tag by default, and most bloggers just leave it that way. Specifically you want to concentrate on blogs that have both the ‘Do-Follow’ and ‘CommentLuv’ plugins installed, as we do here at the Top Traffic Tips Blog. The Do-Follow tag tells search engines to follow your backlink and spider your blog or website, while CommentLuv fetches the last blog post you put online and links to it using your post’s title, thus ensuring your keywords are in the linking text – you ARE using keywords in every heading, right?

Benefits: My own experience using all 3 methods have shown blog commenting to be the most effective way to get one-way backlinks quickly to a new site, blog or affiliate link. While they don’t go viral like your articles do, the time involvement is much less. You simply take your list of appropriate blogs in your niche, and comment on 3-5 of them a day. This keeps the backlinks coming in over time, the way the search engines prefer, and gets links to your various posts according to what your last post was when you make your comment. External one-way backlinks to a lot of different pages in your blog or on your site is truly powerful – more powerful than all of them pointing just to your home page. And, like article marketing, intelligent commenting helps to build your rep as an expert in your field, and leads to more people cliocking through to your link.

Disadvantages: None, really, except the time it takes to locate the proper blogs in the first place, and that’s been solved for you now, with the release of a new directory of appropriate blogs to gain one-way backlinks from – you can download the report with both PDF and CSV copies of over 4,000 blogs to get one-way backlinks from by commenting there, ranging from PR0 to PR7. Start with the list, and find the one’s best suited to your target market, then work your way through, again 3-5 blogs per day.

Two Caveats about your backlink-building campaign – first, don’t ignore article marketing – keep it in your mix because of the long-term viral effect it has in building backlinks to your site. For every four or five days you spend on blog commenting, spend one on article marketing. Just be sure you start with the blog commenting, since it can generate traffic the fastest and points to different pages within your blog or site.

Second, do not – I repeat, DO NOT use auto-commenting software for this – be professional and visit the blogs yourself, leaving intelligent comments relating directly to the blog post you’re commenting on. First, almost every blog using the Do-Follow tag is moderated, so your comments won’t get through anyway. And after you’ve hit them a half-dozen times with spam comments, no matter how complimentary you are, they’ll simple add your IP address to the banned list to avoid having to delete your posts, and will report the comments as spam.

A long-term mix of blog commenting and article marketing will certainly bring you all the traffic you want, so grab the Do-Follow Blog Report now and get started!

To your success building one-way backlinks…

How to Build a High Traffic Web Site or Blog

How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site or Blog
Since posting my 2005 traffic figures recently, I’ve received many questions about how I was able to start this web site from scratch and build its traffic to over 700,000 visitors per month (Jan 2006 projection) in about 15 months — without spending any money on marketing or promotion.  Building a high-traffic web site was my intention from the very beginning, so I don’t think this result was accidental.

My traffic-building strategy isn’t based on tricks or techniques that will go out of style.  It’s mainly about providing genuine value and letting word of mouth do the rest.  Sadly, this makes me something of a contrarian today, since I happen to disagree with much of what I’ve seen written about traffic-building elsewhere.  I do virtually no marketing for this site at all.  My visitors do it for me, not because I trick them into doing it but simply because they want to.

Here are 10 of my best suggestions for building a high traffic web site:

1. Create valuable content.

Is your content worthy of being read by millions of people?  Remember that the purpose of content is to provide value to others.  Do you provide genuine value, and is it the best you’re capable of providing?

When I sit down to write, I sometimes imagine myself standing on an outdoor concert stage before an audience of a million people.  Then I ask myself, “What shall I say to this audience of fellow human beings?”  If a million people each spend five minutes on this site, that’s nearly 10 person-years total.  I do my best to make my writing worthy of this differential.  I don’t always succeed, but this is the mindset that helps me create strong content.

Think about the effect you want your writing to have on people.  Since I write about personal growth, I want my writing to change people for the better.  I want to expand people’s thinking, to raise their consciousness, and to help them eliminate fear from their lives.  If my writing doesn’t change people’s thinking, actions, or awareness, then my value isn’t being transferred well enough.

When you focus on providing real value instead of churning out disposable content, your readers will notice.  And they’ll refer others to your site — in droves.  I typically see at least 10 new links to my site appearing each day (mostly via trackbacks but also via vanity feeds).  I’m not going out and requesting those links — other bloggers just provide them, usually because they’re commenting on something I’ve written.  Many fellow bloggers have also honored StevePavlina.com with a general recommendation for the entire site, not just links to my individual blog posts.  It’s wonderful to see that kind of feedback.

Strong content is universally valued.  It’s hard work to create it, but in the long run it generates lots of long-term referral traffic.  I’d rather write one article I’m really proud of than 25 smaller posts.  It’s been my experience that the best articles I write will outperform all the forgettable little posts I’ve made.  Quality is more important than quantity.  Quantity without quality, however, is easier, which is one reason so many people use that strategy.  Ultimately, however, the Internet already contains more quantity than any one of us can absorb in our lifetimes, but there will always be a place for good quality content that stands out from the crowd.

If you have nothing of genuine value to offer to a large audience, then you have no need of a high-traffic web site.  And if there’s no need for it, you probably won’t get it.  Each time you write, focus on creating the best content you can.  You’ll get better as you go along, but always do your best.  I’ve written some 2000–word articles and then deleted them without posting them because I didn’t feel they were good enough.

2. Create original content.

Virtually everything on this site is my own original content.  I rarely post blog entries that merely link to what others are writing.  It takes more effort to produce original content, but it’s my preferred long-term strategy.  I have no interest in creating a personal development portal to other sites.  I want this site to be a final destination, not a middleman.

Consequently, when people arrive here, they often stick around for a while.  Chances are good that if you like one of my articles, you may enjoy others.  This site now has hundreds of them to choose from.  You can visit the articles section to read my (longer) feature articles or the blog archives to see an easy-to-navigate list of all my blog entries since the site launched.

Yes, there’s a lot to read on this site, more than most people can read in a day, but there’s also a lot of value (see rule #1).  Some people have told me they’ve read for many hours straight, and they leave as different people.  I think anyone who reads this site for several hours straight is going to experience a shift in awareness.  When you read a lot of dense, original content from a single person, it’s going to have an impact on you.  And this content is written with the intention to help you grow.

Although I’m not big on competing with others, it’s hard to compete with an original content site.  Anyone can start their own personal development web site, but the flavor of this site is unique simply because no one else has had the exact same experiences as me.

While I think sites that mainly post content from others have the potential to build traffic faster in the beginning, I think original content sites have an easier time keeping their traffic, which makes for a more solid, long-term foundation.  Not everyone is going to like my work, but for those that do, there’s no substitute.

3. Create timeless content.

While I do occasionally write about time-bound events, the majority of my content is intended to be timeless.  I’m aware that anything I write today may still be read by people even after I’m dead.  People still quote Aristotle today because his ideas have timeless value, even though he’s been dead for about 2300 years.  I think about how my work might influence future generations in addition to my own.  What advice shall I pass on to my great grandchildren?

I tend to ignore fads and current events in my writing.  Wars, natural disasters, and corrupt politicians have been with us for thousands of years.  There are plenty of others who are compelled to write about those things, so I’ll leave that coverage to them.

Will the content you’re creating today still be providing real value in the year 2010?  2100?  4000?

Writing for future generations helps me cut through the fluff and stay focused on the core of my message, which is to help people grow.  As long as there are people (even if our bodies are no longer strictly biological), there will be the opportunity for growth, so there’s a chance that at least some of what I’m creating today will still have relevance.  And if I can write something that will be relevant to future generations, then it will certainly be relevant and meaningful today.

In terms of traffic building, timeless content connects with people at a deeper level than time-bound content.  The latter is meant to be forgotten, while the former is meant to be remembered.  We forget yesterday’s news, but we remember those things that have meaning to us.  So I strive to write about meanings instead of happenings.

Even though we’re conditioned to believe that news and current events are important, in the grand scheme of things, most of what’s covered by the media is trivial and irrelevant.  Very little of today’s news will even be remembered next week, let alone a hundred years from now.  Certainly some events are important, but at least 99% of what the media covers is irrelevant fluff when viewed against the backdrop of human history.

Ignore the fluff, and focus on building something with the potential to endure.  Write for your children and grandchildren.

4. Write for human beings first, computers second.

A lot has been written about the optimal strategies for strong search engine rankings in terms of posting frequency and post length.  But I largely ignore that advice because I write for human beings, not computers.

I write when I have something meaningful to say, and I write as much as it takes to say it.  On average I post about five times per week, but I have no set quota.  I also write much longer entries than most bloggers.  No one has ever accused me of being too brief.  My typical blog entry is about 1500–2000 words, and some (like this one) are much longer.  Many successful bloggers would recommend I write shorter entries (250–750 words) and post more frequently (20x per week), since that creates more search engine seeds for the same amount of writing.  And while I agree with them that such a strategy would generate more search engine traffic, I’m not going to take their advice.  To do so would interfere too much with my strategy of delivering genuine value and creating timeless content.  I have no interest in cranking out small chunks of disposable content just to please a computer.  Anyone can print out an article to read later if they don’t have time to read it now and if the subject is of genuine interest to them.  Part of the reason I write longer articles is that even though fewer people will take the time to read them, for those that do the articles are usually much more impactful.

Because of these decisions, my search engine traffic is fairly low compared to other bloggers.  Google is my #1 referrer, but it accounts for less than 1.5% of my total traffic.  My traffic is extremely decentralized.  The vast majority of it comes from links on thousands of other web sites and from direct requests.  Ultimately, my traffic grows because people tell other people about this site, either online or offline.  I’ve also done very well with social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg.com, and reddit.com because they’re based on personal recommendations.  I’ve probably had about a dozen articles hit the del.icio.us popular list within the past year, definitely more than my fair share.

I prefer this traffic-building strategy because it leaves me less vulnerable to shifts in technology.  I figure that Google ultimately wants to make it easy for its visitors to find valuable content, so my current strategy should be in alignment with Google’s long-term strategy.  My feeling is that Google would be well-served by sending more of its traffic here.  But that alignment simply arises from my focus on providing value first and foremost.

5. Know why you want a high-traffic site.

I write because my purpose in life is to help people become more conscious and aware — to grow as human beings.  I don’t have a separate job or career other than this.  Because my work is driven by this purpose, I have a compelling reason to build a high-traffic web site, one that aligns with my deepest personal values.  More web traffic means I can have a bigger impact by reaching more people.  And over the course of the next few decades, this influence has the potential to create a positive change that might alter the future direction of human civilization.  Most significantly, I want to help humanity move past fear and for us to stop relating to each other through the mechanisms of fear.  If I fail, I fail.  But I’m not giving up no matter how tough it gets.

Those are big stakes, and it might sound like I’m exaggerating, but this is the level at which I think about my work today.  Everything else I do, including building a high traffic web site, is simply a means to that end.  Today I’m just planting seeds, and most of them haven’t even sprouted yet.  A high traffic web site is just one of the sprouts that came about as a result of pursuing the purpose that drives me.  But it is not an end in itself.

What will you do if you succeed in building a high-traffic web site?  If you someday find yourself in the privileged position of being able to influence millions of people, what will you say to them?  Will you honor and respect this position by using it as a channel to serve the highest good of all, or will you throw that opportunity away to pursue your own fleeting fame and fortune while feeding your audience disposable drivel?

Although I launched this web site in October 2004, I’ve been writing articles since 1999, and feedback has allowed me to understand how small slices of my writing have affected certain people in the long run.  After reading something I’ve written, people have quit their jobs, started their own businesses, changed religions, and ended relationships.  While some people might find this level of impact ego-gratifying, for me it intensifies my feeling of personal responsibility for my writing.  I’ve seen that I’m able to have an impact on people, so I damned well better make it a good one.

This “why” is what drives me.  It’s what compels me to go to my computer and write something at 3am and not stop until 10am.  I get inspired often.  The #1 reason I want more traffic is that it will allow me to help more people.  That’s where I direct my ambition for this site, and consequently I’m extremely motivated, which certainly plays a key role in taking action.

6. Let your audience see the real you.

My life and my writing are intricately intertwined, such that it’s impossible to separate the two.  When someone reads this web site, they’ll eventually come to know a great deal about me as a person.  Usually this creates a skewed and inaccurate impression of who I am today because I change a lot over time — I’m not the same person I was last year — but it’s close enough.  Getting to know me makes it easier for people to understand the context of what I write, which means that more value can be transferred in less time.

I’ve told many personal stories on this site, including my most painful and difficult experiences.  I don’t do this to be gratuitous but rather because those stories help make a point — that no matter where you find yourself today, you always have the opportunity to grow in some small way, and no matter how small those changes are, they’re going to add up over time to create massive lifelong growth.  That’s a lesson we all need to remember.

When I find ways to turn some of my darkest experiences into lessons that might help others in similar situations, it actually transforms those painful memories into joyful ones.  They take on new meaning for me, and I can see that there was a positive reason I had to endure such experiences, one that ultimately serves the highest good of all.  Oddly, I now find that it was my darkest times that help create the most light for others.

With respect to privacy, I don’t really care much for it.  I do respect other people’s right to privacy, so when people tell me personal stories via email, I don’t turn around and re-post them to my blog.  But I’m OK with being rather un-private myself.  The need for privacy comes from the desire to protect the ego, which is a fear-driven desire, and fear is something I just don’t need in my life.  My attitude is that it’s perfectly OK to fail or to be rejected publicly.  Trying to appear perfect is nothing but a house of cards that will eventually collapse.

I think allowing people to know the real me makes it possible to build a relationship with my audience that’s based on intimacy and friendship.  I dislike seeing people putting me on too much of a pedestal and using labels like “guru” or “overachiever.”  Such labels create distance which makes communication harder.  They emphasize our differences instead of our similarities.  Communication between equals — between friends — is more effective.

More genuine communication means better connections with your audience, which means more repeat traffic and more referral traffic.  This isn’t a manipulative game though, and excessive or overly dramatic self-disclosure for the purpose of linkbaiting will only backfire.  Your reasons for storytelling must be to benefit your audience.  The traffic benefits are a positive side effect.

7. Write what is true for you, and learn to live with the consequences.

If the stuff I’ve written on this site means I’ll never be able to run for a political office, I can live with that.  I’m willing to write what is true for me, even if it goes against my social conditioning.  Being honest is more important to me than being popular.  But the irony is that because bold honesty is so rare among civilized humans, in the long run this may be the best traffic-building strategy of all.

People often warn me not to write things that might alienate a portion of my visitors.  But somehow I keep doing the opposite and seeing traffic go up, not down.  I don’t treat any subjects as taboo or sacred if they’re relevant to personal growth, and that includes diet and religion.  It’s no secret that I’m a vegan ex-Catholic.  Do I alienate people when I say that torturing and killing defenseless animals for food is wrong?  Perhaps.  But truth is truth.  I happen to think it’s a bad idea to feed cows cement dust and bovine growth hormone, to pack live chickens into warehouses where the ammonia from their feces is strong enough to burn their skin off, and to feed 70% of our grain to livestock while tens of thousands of people die of hunger each day.  I also think it’s a bad idea to pay people to perform these actions on my behalf.  It really doesn’t matter to me that 999 people out of 1000 disagree with me.  Your disagreement with me doesn’t change what went into producing your burger.  It’s still a diseased, tortured, chemical-injected cow, one that was doomed to a very sad life because of a decision you made.  And you’re still responsible for your role in that cow’s suffering whether you like it or not.

That last paragraph is a good example of the kind of stuff I write that makes people want to put me in a cage, inject me with hormones, and feed me cement dust.  It wouldn’t surprise me terribly if that ends up being my fate.

I write what is true for me, regardless of public opinion.  Sometimes I’m in the majority; sometimes I’m not.  I’m fully aware that some of my opinions are unpopular, and I’m absolutely fine with that.  What I’m not fine with is putting truth to a vote.

I take the time to form my own opinions instead of simply regurgitating what I was taught as a child.  And I’m also well aware that there are people spending billions of dollars to make you think that a burger is not a very sad, diseased, tortured, chemical-injected cow.  But I’m going to keep writing to help you remain aware of things like that, even though you may hate me for it.  That defensiveness eventually leads to doubt, which leads to change and growth, so it’s perfectly fine.  I’m good at dealing with defensiveness.

I don’t worry too much about hurting people’s feelings.  Hurt feelings are a step in the right direction for many people.  If I’m able to offend you so easily, to me that means you already recognize some truth in what I’ve written, but you aren’t ready to face it consciously yet.  If you read something from me that provokes an emotional reaction, then a seed has already been planted.  In other words, it’s already too late for you.

My goal isn’t to convince anyone of anything in particular.  I’m not an animal rights activist, and I don’t have a religion to promote.  My goal is to awaken people to living more consciously.  This requires raising people’s awareness across all facets of their lives, so they can make the big decisions for themselves.  It requires breaking social conditioning and replacing it with conscious awareness and intention.  That’s a big job, but someone has to do it.  And if I don’t do it, then I have to admit I’m just part of the problem like all the other hibernating bears.

A lot has been written about the importance of transparency in blogging, and truth is the best transparency of all.  Truth creates trust, and trust builds traffic.  No games, no gimmicks… just plain old brutal honesty.  Even the people that say they hate you will still come back, and eventually those people will become your most ardent supporters.  Even if they don’t agree with you, they’ll learn they can trust you and that your intentions are honorable, and trust is more important than agreement.

8. Treat your visitors like real human beings.

Even though I’m sitting at my computer writing this, seemingly alone, I know you’re a real human being reading it on the other end.  My apologies to sentient androids who may be reading this years after it’s been written.  You aren’t just a number in my web stats.  Despite the technology involved and the time-space differential between my writing and your reading, there’s still a human-to-human connection between us that transcends time and space.  And that connection matters to me.  I feel its presence whenever I do my best writing.

While I imagine being on a stage in front of a million people when deciding which topic to write about, once I actually get going, I imagine having a one-on-one conversation with a friend.  This means revealing some of myself and being honest, as the last two points already addressed, but it also means genuinely caring about you as a person.  And that’s perhaps one of the best kept secrets of my success as a blogger.  I actually care about helping you grow.  I want you to become more conscious and aware.  I want you to experience less fear in your life.  And my concern for your well-being isn’t conditional upon you liking me.

I happen to think we have a lot more similarities than differences.  Based on what I know about myself, I imagine you’d like your life to be better tomorrow than it was yesterday.  I imagine you’d like to be happier, more fulfilled, and more at peace with yourself.  I also imagine you’re living below your potential and could use some help overcoming fear and solving certain problems to enable you to tap more of that potential.  And finally, I imagine you wouldn’t believe me if I said you can have it all for only $19.95 (as well you shouldn’t).

The reason I work so hard to create original content and then give it away for free is because I want to help as many people as possible.  I genuinely care what happens to this beautiful planet and to the people who live here.  It’s possible I actually value your life even more than you do.  This is the kind of motivation that never wanes.  I sometimes lose sight of it when I get caught up in the details, but the connection is always there, waiting for me to tap into it whenever I want.  This provides me with a wellspring of creative ideas and an inexhaustible passion for contribution.

I don’t need to play stupid marketing and sales games with you.  There’s nothing for you to buy here.  Even if I add some products in the future, I’m not going to try to manipulate you into buying something you don’t need with a slew of false promises.  I might make more money in the short-term by doing that, but it would sever our genuine connection, create a wall between us, and reduce the level of impact I’m able to have.  Ultimately, that approach would lead to failure for me, at least in terms of how I define success.  I can’t help you grow if I violate your trust.

I cannot force anyone to grow who doesn’t want to.  But there are a lot of people on this planet who are now ready to let go of low-awareness living and start pushing themselves to the next level of human existence.  And they need help to get there because it’s a difficult journey, and there are strong forces working against it.

Real human beings helping real human beings is ultimately what traffic growth is all about.  That’s precisely what a link or a referral is.  If you align yourself with the intention of genuinely helping people because you care, you’ll soon find yourself with an abundance of traffic.

9. Keep money in its proper place.

Money is important.  Obviously I have bills to pay.  Money pays for my computer, my high-speed internet connection, my house, and my food.  I just returned yesterday from a vacation that money paid for.  My wife and I had a great time partly because we didn’t have to worry about money at all on the trip.  We did everything we wanted to do without being hampered by a lack of funds.  And this web site paid for it.

It’s important that I generate some money from my work, but it’s not necessary that I extract every possible dollar.  In fact, relative to its traffic levels, I’m seriously under-monetizing this site.  But money is only a means to an end, not an end in itself.  Making a positive contribution to the world is a lot more important to me than money.  Money can be useful in achieving this objective, but human relationships are far more important.  The funny thing is that the less I rely on money, the more of it I seem to have.

I’m already making more money than I need to pay my bills, and my income from this site keeps going up each month.  If I simply keep doing what I’m doing, I’ll probably end up becoming fairly wealthy.  But money is an extremely weak motivator for me.  Very little of what I do today has a profit motive behind it except to the extent that money will fuel more important goals.  That tends to confuse certain people because some of my decisions align with earning money, but many don’t.  While I do consider myself an entrepreneur (at least it’s less isolating than “guru”), I only see money as a tool for enhancing and expanding my contribution.

While many entrepreneurs pursue money for the purpose of becoming wealthy, I chose a different route.  I sought to earn money for the purpose of increasing my freedom.  I don’t want to get myself stuck in a pattern of working for money, so I’m constantly turning down opportunities to make money that would restrict my freedom.  For example, I don’t do any consulting or coaching.  Consequently, my calendar contains very few fixed appointments.  This doesn’t mean I’m idle.  It just means I spend my time doing what I freely choose to do instead of what others would have me do.  I require this level of flexibility to do my best work.

By paying close attention to how I earn money and not just how much I earn, I keep money in its proper place.  This allows me to stay focused on my purpose without getting wrapped up in less important concerns like building a brand, closing sales, or doing phony marketing.

I dislike it when other people use one-dimensional sales and marketing tactics on me, so I avoid using these techniques on this site.  I’ve sort of unplugged myself from the current capitalistic system and set up a side system of my own that I find much more congruent with conscious living.  I would love for other people to have the same level of freedom I enjoy each day.  I’m sure I’ll continue to improve my approach over time, but it’s working wonderfully so far.  Imagine having a business with no products, no inventory, no sales, and no customers, but still generating an abundant positive cashflow.

Since the income generation is largely on autopilot, I can focus my time and energy on creating content instead of on doing marketing or trying to sell something.  And being able to devote so much time to content creation without worrying how I’ll pay my bills makes it a lot easier to build high traffic.

Some business models make it very challenging to build traffic.  You have to spend a lot of time and energy just on lead generation, and then maybe you try to monetize those leads by selling a product or service.  It’s always an uphill struggle.

I give all my best content away for free.  Word of mouth does the rest.  So my traffic building strategy is more like flowing downstream.  It hasn’t been a struggle for me at all.  And once you have sufficient traffic, it isn’t that hard to monetize it without becoming an ogre.

We’ve all heard the expression, “Build a better mousetrap, and they’ll come.”  And we’ve also heard marketing and sales people say that this is just plain wrong — you have to market and sell that mousetrap effectively too.  I say they’re all wrong.  My approach is the equivalent of, “Build a better mousetrap and give it away for free, and they’ll come — and they’ll bring friends too.”

10. If you forget the first nine suggestions, just focus on genuinely helping people, and the rest will take care of itself.

One thing that turns me off about typical self-help marketing is that authors and speakers often position themselves as if they’re the opposite of their audience.  I’m successful and you’re not.  I’m rich and you’re not.  I’m fit and you’re not.  You need me because something is lacking in your life, I have exactly what you lack, and if you pay me (and make me even richer and you poorer), I’ll show you how you can have it too.  And if it doesn’t work for you, it just means you’re even more of an idiot than the people who provided my testimonials.

I’m sure you’ve heard this sort of nonsense many times before.

All of this I’ve-arrived-and-you-haven’t stuff is stupid.  It suggests that life is about destinations and that once you’ve arrived, you’re done growing and can just relax and sip fruity drinks for the rest of your life.  But there’s more to life than border crossings.  If you go from single to married or from non-millionaire to millionaire, that’s fine and dandy.  Crossing the border into parenthood was a big one for me.  But that’s only one day of my life, and to be honest, I didn’t have much control over it except for a decision made nine-months earlier (and it seemed like a pretty attractive idea at the time).  What about all those other days though?

Growing as a human being is something I work on daily.  I’m deeply passionate about my own growth, so naturally I want to share this part of the journey with others.  If I start marketing myself with the “I’m successful and you’re not approach,” I hope someone will come put me out of my misery, since that would mean I’m done growing and ready to die.  I don’t expect to ever be done growing as long as I exist as a human being.  There are always new distinctions to be made and new experiences to enjoy.  And yes… plenty of mistakes to be made as well.

One of the great benefits of focusing on helping others is that it gets fear out of the way.  Without fear you become free to just be yourself.  You’re able to take intelligent risks and remain detached from any specific outcome because the journey is more important to you than the specific stops along the way.  Personally it’s not the destinations that excite me but rather the unfolding process of discovery.  I love the anticipation of wondering what lies around each new bend.

If we are to help each other, we need to be partners in the pursuit of growth, not opponents.  So it makes no sense to put up fake walls between us.  The ego needs walls to protect it, but if we can get past the fear-based needs of the ego, we’ll make a lot more progress.

There are plenty of things I could do with this site that would make me more money or grow traffic faster in the short-term, but I won’t do them because they’ll just put more distance between us.  I’ll be on my side, you’ll be on your side, and we’ll each be slightly afraid of the other.  I’ll be worried that maybe you won’t buy what I’m selling, and you’ll be worried about getting ripped off or taken advantage of.  We’ll just be drinking yet another round of fear, which is exactly the opposite of what we need to grow.

One of my biggest challenges in life right now is figuring out how to help enough people switch their primary polarization from fear to love.  Our emotions are an energy source for us (they drive our actions), and most of the world is still driven by fear energy.  Watching TV news is a good example; we can actually feel energized by watching others suffer.  Hurting animals is another example; we eat their fear for breakfast.  But there’s another fuel for human consciousness, and perhaps the best way to describe it is unconditional love.  This isn’t the squishy emotion of romantic love — it’s a sense of connection to everything that exists and a desire to serve the highest good of all.  Unconditional love, when it becomes one’s primary fuel, cultivates fearlessness.  In this state you still have the biological fight-or-flight response, but you aren’t driven by emotional worries like fear of failure or fear of rejection.  You feel perfectly safe regardless of external circumstances.  And when you have this feeling of unconditional safety, you’re truly free to be yourself, to embrace new experiences, and to grow at a very fast pace.

Personal growth is not a zero-sum game.  If you grow as a human being, it doesn’t harm me.  In fact, ultimately if all of us grow as individuals, it’s going to make this whole planet better for everyone.  When enough people switch their primary polarization from fear to unconditional love, this planet will become a true paradise.  That’s a good thing for all of us, one that’s more important than all the money in the world.

Perhaps you have a less ambitious goal for building web traffic than raising human consciousness and working towards world peace.  That doesn’t matter.  You can still make helping others your primary focus, and if you do that, you’ll find it relatively easy to build a high-traffic web site.  If you align yourself with serving the highest good of all, you’ll receive plenty of help along the way, and best of all, you’ll deserve it.

Do your best to help your visitors out of genuine concern for their well-being, and they’ll help you build your traffic and even generate a nice income from it.  It’s as simple as that.

Final thoughts

Building a high-traffic website can be very challenging if you’ve never done it before. These tips really only scratch the surface of what you need to know to succeed. Since writing this article, I found an alternative suggestion for those who find it difficult to build substantial traffic and income online

High Traffic Blogs and Blogging Income

High Traffic Blogs and Blogging Income
High traffic blogs are primed for a huge breakthrough in revenue generation. With their already large volume of vistors, combined with some solid products and services on offer, and you have a recipe for some serious dollars.

Okay, you say that you have a blog that receives single digit visits per day. Well there is hope out there for increasing traffic numbers dramatically, but that’s a topic for another day. Why does everyone say that? Why did I? Oh well.

Anyway, back to the business at hand of blogging for dollars.

Friend of Blog Business World, and the first blogger I read on a regular basis, Aaron Gleeman of Aaron Gleeman.com has just passed the 1.5 million visitor mark this week. That’s right. Aaron has had one and a half million visitors to his highly popular baseball and popular culture blog.

About these very impressive visitor totals, Aaron had this to say:

…the counter that tracks visitor totals rolled past 1.5 million this week. In the early days this blog often had a single-digit readership, so the visitor count has long since passed the point of shocking me. I want to thank everyone who has accounted for one of those 1.5 million ticks on the counter. And a special thanks goes out to my mom, who if my calculations are correct has been responsible for approximately 1.4 million of the visits.

While it’s interesting that Aaron Gleeman has so many visitors, the real interesting information lies elsewhere in the post. Instead of having you wade through the various links and thoughts, I’ll find the passage for you.

Aaron wants to make some money from his blogging popularity:

Wired had an interesting article about the few people who are actually making good money from this blogging thing. I remain convinced that a decent living can be scratched out solely from blogging if it’s done right, although I have about a dozen too many other writing gigs (and not nearly enough money in the bank) to find out if I’m right.

I believe that Aaron is already earning indirect revenue from his blogging activities. As a direct result of his writing about baseball, Aaron has landed a number of good paying writing jobs with the mainstream and internet based sports media. In fact, the sports columns are Aaron’s major source of income.

Without the blog as his business marketing tool, Aaron would have been much less likely to have found those freelance writing opportunities. As a blogger, writing daily about sports and culture in general, and baseball in particular, the blog posts made Aaron’s writing a known commodity.

A blog can generate revenue for a business in more than one way. While high traffic blogs like Aaron Gleeman.com can and probably should offer advertising and products, they are not the only way to achieve blog income. As we have seen, Aaron has the blog as a writing business marketing and promotional vehicle. The blog serves as an online writing portfolio.

This indirect revenue is one of the most powerful uses of a business blog, and doesn’t even require high traffic numbers. Creating a positive and interactive relationship with readers is a key strength of blogging. Discussing topics of interest to your readership, and establishing yourself as an expert in your field, can turn a blog into a powerful buzz marketing builder. That is certainly the case for Aaron Gleeman.com.

That said, I would recommend that Aaron Gleeman consider offering his own branded and tradmarked products on his blog. He could also work some affiliate deals with other vendors. Sports and poker related merchandise sells very well. With items for sale, Aaron could successfully leverage his large readership into some nice passive income. The great thing about passive income is can arrive in your account even while you are fast asleep. Now that’s a goal to strive for!

Large traffic blogs like Aaron Gleeman.com can definitely earn some decent income from blogging. Smaller traffic blogs can earn indirect income, by using the blog as a business marketing vehicle. As traffic levels build up over time, more direct passive income can be earned as well.

Blogs of all traffic volumes can make money.

You simply need a little creativity to make those blogging dollars flow your way.

Wayne Hurlbert provides insigtful information about marketing, promotions, search engine optimization and public relations for websites and business blogs on the popular Blog Business World.

Bags Galore The Camera Backpack for a Stylish Camera Carrying Gear

Bags Galore: The Camera Backpack for a Stylish Camera Carrying Gear
When you go out of the house to go somewhere else, you never forget to bring your bag. Bags are very important; it's where you put all your stuff. In fact, you've been using it ever since you were in the pre-school. And now that you're all-grown up, you still can't live without it.

Bags are used in many different ways. There are school bags, designer bags for men and women, laptop bags, accessory bags, and most of all, a camera bag for your precious camera. If you love photography, and you take your most prized possession with you (that is your camera), you want to ensure its safety. Then what you need is a camera bag. There are bags specially made for cameras.

If you don’t want to carry a bag, you can opt for a backpack camera-bag. Just sling it over your shoulders, and off you go. It's not difficult to find one because it is widely available in department stores and even on the net. You are already aware that you can actually go shopping on the net without leaving your home. Through the Internet, you can choose from many styles of bags for your camera. Look for online stores that offer this type of bags.

Some of the bags available are the following:

1.    APPOLLO camera back pack
2.    Canon Deluxe Back pack
3.    LowePro Slingshot 100AW Digital Camera Backpack
4.    Tamrac back pack Mini Trekker
5.    Pro mini back pack camera bag

These are just some of the backpack bags available for cameras. There are many brands of bags, and oftentimes when it comes to choosing the bag, it depends on what camera you have and on how you are going to use the bag. Since there are many bags to choose from, you should first identify your needs and what other accessories you plan to put into your bag.

You can find camera backpacks easy for toting. Some bags have a lot of pockets in case you need to carry other items like batteries or films. Some bags even have a compass attached to it, more like the military bags. The bottom section of the bag is where you usually put your camera and the bag's top section is for your personal gear.

You can find back packs in different colors and designs. If you want to spend more money on your camera bag, you can also go for ones which are specially designed to withstand harsh weather conditions. There are camera bags which have rain covers to completely protect your camera form getting wet, and a lot of compartments for other important things. You can even put your MP3 or CD players on one of its compartments.

Choose a camera bag that is durable and of top quality. Most bags, especially the expensive ones, have warranties. Sometimes, people forget these things because they want a much cheaper bag. However, if you can't afford the expensive ones, it's not a sin to buy cheap bags. Just make sure that the bag can carry your camera stuff with ease and protection.

Cameras are expensive, so naturally you want to have a perfect bag to carry your precious item. So if you're going out, make sure that you put it in your back pack rather than carrying it around.

    

Making a Profit

Making a Profit
Accountants are responsible for preparing three primary types of financial statements for a business. The income statement reports the profit-making activities of the business and the bottom-line profit or loss for a specified period. The balance sheets reports the financial position of the business at a specific point in time, ofteh the last day of the period. and the statement of cash flows reports how much cash was generated from profit what the business did with this money.

Everyone knows profit is a good thing. It's what our economy is founded on. It doesn't sound like such a big deal. Make more money than you spend to sell or manufacture products. But of course nothing's ever really simple, is it? A profit report, or net income statement first identifies the business and the time period that is being summarized in the report.

You read an income statement from the top line to the bottom line. Every step of the income statement reports the deduction of an expense. The income statement also reports changes in assets and liabilities as well, so that if there's a revenue increase, it's either because there's been an increase in assets or a decrease in a company's liabilities. If there's been an increase in the expense line, it's because there's been either a decrease in assets or an increase in liabilities.

Net worth is also referred to as owners' equity in the business. They're not exactly interchangeable. Net worth expresses the total of assets less the liabilities. Owners' equity refers to who owns the assets after the liabilities are satisfied.

These shifts in assets and liabilities are important to owners and executives of a business because it's their responsibility to manage and control such changes.  Making a profit in a business involves several variable, not just increasing the amount of cash that flows through a company, but management of other assets as well.

Personal Accounting

Personal Accounting
If you have a checking account, of course you balance it periodically to account for any differences between what's in your statement and what you wrote down for checks and deposits. Many people do it once a month when their statement is mailed to them, but with the advent of online banking, you can do it daily if you're the sort whose banking tends to get away from them.

You balance your checkbook to note any charges in your checking account that you haven't recorded in your checkbook. Some of these can include ATM fees, overdraft fees, special transaction fees or low balance fees, if you're required to keep a minimum balance in your account. You also balance your checkbook to record any credits that you haven't noted previously. They might include automatic deposits, or refunds or other electronic deposits. Your checking account might be an interest-bearing account and you want to record any interest that it's earned.

You also need to discover if you've made any errors in your recordkeeping or if the bank has made any errors. 

Another form of accounting that we all dread is the filing of annual federal income tax returns. Many people use a CPA to do their returns; others do it themselves. Most forms include the following items:

Income - any money you've earned from working or owning assets, unless there are specific exemptions from income tax.

Personal exemptions - this is a certain amount of income that is excused from tax.

Standard deduction - some personal expenditures or business expenses can be deducted from your income to reduce the taxable amount of income. These expenses include items such as interest paid on your home mortgage, charitable contributions and property taxes.

Taxable income - This is the balance of income that's subject to taxes after personal exemptions and deductions are factored in.

Bookkeeping Basics

Bookkeeping Basics
Most people probably think of bookkeeping and accounting as the same thing, but bookkeeping is really one function of accounting, while accounting encompasses many functions involved in managing the financial affairs of a business. Accountants prepare reports based, in part, on the work of bookkeepers.

Bookkeepers perform all manner of record-keeping tasks. Some of them include the following:

-They prepare what are referred to as source documents for all the operations of a business - the buying, selling, transferring, paying and collecting. The documents include papers such as purchase orders, invoices, credit card slips, time cards, time sheets and expense reports. Bookkeepers also determine and enter in the source documents what are called the financial effects of the transactions and other business events. Those include paying the employees, making sales, borrowing money or buying products or raw materials for production.

-Bookkeepers also make entries of the financial effects into journals and accounts. These are two different things. A journal is the record of transactions in chronological order. An accounts is a separate record, or page for each asset and each liability. One transaction can affect several accounts.

-Bookkeepers prepare reports at the end of specific period of time, such as daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually. To do this, all the accounts need to be up to date. Inventory records must be updated and the reports checked and double-checked to ensure that they're as error-free as possible.

-The bookkeepers also compile complete listings of all accounts. This is called the adjusted trial balance. While a small business may have a hundred or so accounts, very large businesses can have more than 10,000 accounts.

-The final step is for the bookkeeper to close the books, which means bringing all the bookkeeping for a fiscal year to a close and summarized.

Profit and Loss Finance

Profit and Loss Finance
It might seem like a no-brainer to define just exactly what profit and loss are. But of course these have definitions like everything else.  Profit can be called different things, for a start. It's sometimes called net income or net earnings.  Businesses that sell products and services generate profit from the sales of those products or services and from controlling the attendant costs of running the business. Profit can also be referred to as Return on Investment, or ROI. While some definitions limit ROI to profit on investments in such securities as stocks or bonds, many companies use this term to refer to short-term and long-term business results. Profit is also sometimes called taxable income.

It's the job of the accounting and finance professionals to assess the profits and losses of a company. They have to know what created both and what the results of both sides of the business equation are. They determine what the net worth of a company is. Net worth is the resulting dollar amount from deducting a company's liabilities from its assets. In a privately held company, this is also called owner's equity, since anything that's left over after all the bills are paid, to put it simply, belongs to the owners. In a publicly held company, this profit is returned to the shareholders in the form of dividends. In other words, all liabilities have the first claim on any money the company makes. Anything that's left over is profit. It's not derived from one element or another. Net worth is determined after all the liabilities are deducted from all the assets, including cash and property.

Showing a profit, or a positive figure on the balance sheet, is of course the aim of every business. It's what our economy and society are built on. It doesn't always work out that way. Economic trends and consumer behaviors change and it's not always possible to predict these and what income they'll have on a company's performance.

Careers of accounting

Careers
There are many different careers in the field of accounting ranging from entry-level bookkeeping to the Chief Financial Officer of a company. To achieve positions with more responsibility and higher salaries, it's necessary to have a degree in accounting as well as achieve various professional designations.

One of the primary milestones in any accountant's career is to become a Certified Public Accountant or CPA. To become a CPA you have to go to college with a major in accounting. You also have to pass a national CPA exam. There's also some employment experience required in a CPA firm. This is generally one to two years, although this varies from state to state. Once you satisfy all those requirements, you get a certificate that designates you as a CPA and you're allowed to offer your services to the public.

Many CPAs consider this just one stepping stone to their careers. The chief accountant in many offices is called the controller. The controller is in charge of managing the entire accounting system in a business stays on top of accounting and tax laws to keep the company legal and is responsible for preparing the financial statements.

The controller is also in charge of financial planning and budgeting.  Some companies have only one accounting professional who's essentially the chief cook and bottle washer and does everything. As a business grows in size and complexity, then additional layers of personnel are required to handle the volume of work that comes from growth. Other areas in the company are also impacted by growth, and it's part of the controller's job to determine just how many more salaries the company can pay for additional people without negatively impacting growth and profits.

The controller also is responsible for preparing tax returns for the business; a much more involved and complex task than completing personal income tax forms! In larger organizations, the controller can report to a vice president of finance who reports to the chief financial officer, who is responsible for the broad objectives for growth and profit and implementing the appropriate strategies to achieve the objectives.

Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping
So what goes on the accounting and bookkeeping departments? What do these people do on a daily basis?

Well, one thing they do that's terribly important to everyone working there is Payroll. All the salaries and taxes earned and paid by every employee every pay period have to be recorded. The payroll department has to ensure that the appropriate federal, state and local taxes are being deducted. The pay stub attached to your paycheck records these taxes. They usually include income tax, social security taxes pous employment taxes that have to be paid to federal and state government. Other deductions include personal ones, such as for retirement, vacation, sick pay or medical benefits.  It's a critical function. Some companies have their own payroll departments; others outsource it to specialists.

The accounting department receives and records any payments or cash received from customers or clients of the business or service. The accounting department has to make sure that the money is sourced accurately and deposited in the appropriate accounts. They also manage where the money goes; how much of it is kept on-hand for areas such as payroll, or how much of it goes out to pay what the company owes its banks, vendors and other obligations. Some should also be invested.

The other side of the receivables business is the payables area, or cash disbursements. A company writes a lot of checks during the course of year to pay for purchases, supplies, salaries, taxes, loans and services. The accounting department prepares all these checks and records to whom they were disbursed, how much and for what. Accounting departments also keep track of purchase orders placed for inventory, such as products that will be sold to customers or clients. They also keep track of assets such as a business's property and equipment. This can include the office building, furniture, computers, even the smallest items such as pencils and pens.

Accounting Principles

Accounting Principles
If everyone involved in the process of accounting followed their own system, or no system at all, there's be no way to truly tell whether a company was profitable or not. Most companies follow what are called generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, and there are huge tomes in libraries and bookstores devoted to just this one topic. Unless a company states otherwise, anyone reading a financial statement can make the assumption that company has used GAAP.

If GAAP are not the principles used for preparing financial statements, then a business needs to make clear which other form of accounting they're used and are bound to avoid using titles in its financial statements that could mislead the person examining it. 

GAAP are the gold standard for preparing financial statement. Not disclosing that it has used principles other than GAAP makes a company legally liable for any misleading or misunderstood data. These principles have been fine-tuned over decades and have effectively governed accounting methods and the financial reporting systems of businesses. Different principles have been established for different types of business entities, such for-profit and not-for-profit companies, governments and other enterprises.

GAAP are not cut and dried, however. They're guidelines and as such are often open to interpretation. Estimates have to be made at times, and they require good faith efforts towards accuracy. You've surely heard the phrase "creative accounting" and this is when a company pushes the envelope a little (or a lot) to make their business look more profitable than it might actually be. This is also called massaging the numbers. This can get out of control and quickly turn into accounting fraud, which is also called cooking the books. The results of these practices can be devastating and ruin hundreds and thousands of lives, as in the cases of Enron, Rite Aid and others.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

American hybrid carmakers: racing against time

American hybrid carmakers: racing against time
In the 1990s, the U.S. Department of Energy collaborated with GM, Ford, Chrysler, to challenge the dominance of their Japanese and European counterparts in the development of hybrid cars. Millions of dollars were put into the huge project of developing American hybrid cars.

Ten years after, Ford came up with one model entry into the market, competing against six Japanese hybrid cars. Ford started selling the Escape SUV Hybrid in September of 2004. The other two American hybrid cars manufacturers are having a hard time in delivering their hybrids to the consumer public.

Whatever happened to the big American hybrid dream cars can be anybody’s guess.

Below is a short update on the status of American hybrid car manufacturers. 

Ford

The public release of the Ford Escape Hybrid was finally materialized in September 2004. The original schedule however, was in 2003. The Ford’s answer to the call for American hybrid cars is a fully hybrid electric vehicle, able to run on its gasoline or its electric motor, or both. This is to meet the requirements set by driver demand to optimize performance and limit fuel consumption. 

The Ford Escape was first ever among American hybrid cars.  It produces less than one pound of smog-forming pollutants for every 15,000 miles. This is more significant when compared with all light trucks average of 105 pounds of smog-forming pollutants for every 15,000 miles. The average for passenger cars, with the same number of miles, is 67 pounds.

At present, hybrids, particularly, American hybrid cars are the hottest topic in the U.S. The populace is interested in finding out how hybrid will benefit the environment. , including their small as well as their own budget for fuel. And perhaps, the consumers are interested if the hybrids would really consume small amount of fuel.

And Ford is clever enough to make the first American hybrid car as SUV. For obvious reason, SUV is considered as very American, which help the Ford hybrid to sell.

The Ford Hybrid has the looks and performance capabilities of a normal car. This allows the American hybrid car to evade the “image-look” problem of Honda’s earlier version of hybrid cars. The improved fuel economy usage of the Ford Escape has also impressed American buyers. 

To show its commitment to environment issue, has installed 10.4 acres-wide purifying plants in its factory in Dearborn. The plants server as insulators to the building, and is improving the water runoff. Ford is also on its for producing Mercury Mariner Hybrid next year. A hybrid smaller-sized sedan will follow, and a hydrogen-powered Ford Focus is being developed. 
 
Daimler-Chrysler

When Evan Boberg, an automotive engineer for Chrysler’s hybrid program resigned over the presumed incompetence oof program officers in the early 1990s, many believed that the hybrid program of Chrysler is good as dead. Last year however, Daimler-Chrysler has announced the release of its first hybrid offering in the market, named as the Dodge Ram Contractor Special. As modeled after other hybrid pickups, Dodge Ram will emphasize utility, instead of fuel saving system. The hybrid however, failed to meet the promised mass production, and available only to fleet owners.

In a separate interview by a German auto industry paper in 2004, Thomas Weber, DaimlerChrysler board member, said that it will take five years to come up with a Mercedes hybrid. So before the present decade ends, a new Mercedes will take the road of major cities in the world.

General Motors

GM began offering American hybrid cars with Sierra and Silverado, for fleet and commercial customers in May 2004. In October of the same year, GM started offering the hybrid pickups to six states: Washington, California, Nevada, Alaska, Florid, and Oregon. The limited offering was based consumer demand for American hybrid cars in those States. 

GM also produced 2,000 of their Silverado and Sierra hybrid trucks for 2005. For the year 2006, the availability of the hybrid pickup trucks has been expanded to include the entire nationwide demand. Before the present year ends, GM is contemplating a volume of 3,000 units.

Aside from a new hybrid vehicle Saturn VUE this year, GM is also offering Chevrolet Malibu for next year, 2007. Next year, GM is also set to come up with two-mode full hybrid. This project is being developed with Daimler Chrysler and BMW. The resulting America hybrid car is expected to have 25 percent more fuel economy than the popular SUVs, the Chevrolet Tahoe, and the GMC Yukon.

Mobile Multimedia A New Peak For The Alpine Car Stereo

Mobile Multimedia: A New Peak For The Alpine Car Stereo

We all know that brand names matter when purchasing car audio hardware. There are brands that are surely more reputable than others. When you are at the store and they offer choice after choice after choice, suddenly you feel overwhelmed on what really to buy. But you can be assured of one thing, if they offer you an Alpine car stereo you can’t go wrong with it.

Alpine car stereo and electronics, founded in 1978, is a world leader in the industry of high performance mobile electronics. They specialize in mobile multimedia, an integrated system approach incorporating digital entertainment, security and navigation products for the mobile entertainment.

Alpine car stereos are a new breed of units which feature the convergence of high performance audio, video, navigation and telematics in the form of Mobile Multimedia. Navigation systems act as the resource center of the Alpine car stereo Mobile Multimedia lineup. Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), DVD players, Dolby Digital systems, satellite digital audio radio, mobile data linking and communication through telematics devices will be fused with navigation systems to create a platform of products. Mobile Multimedia integrates Alpine's innovative audio, video, security and navigation products, as well as its new GUI for Drivers, human interface and information communications technology.

To grasp what the Alpine car stereo Mobile Multimedia is, take a look at the IVA-D901 Alpine car stereo Mobile Multimedia Station/CD/DVD Receiver/Ai-NET Controller.

The IVA-D901 has 400% more pixels than a conventional in-vehicle display, meaning that it has 1.15 million pixel elements. It has 50W x 4 built-in power and 3 PreOuts (4 volt), SAT Radio ready, a Hard Disc Drive (HDD), and Alpine car stereo Navigation. Key features include:


- 7" Fully Motorized Wide Screen Monitor
- 18W x 4 MOSFET Amplifier
- Built-in Dolby Digital/DTS Decoder
- Bass Engine® Plus
- Subwoofer Level Control
- Bass Center Frequency Control
- Bass Band Width Adjustment
- Treble Center Frequency Control
- Subwoofer Phase Selector
- Bass Type Control
- 4-Ch Digital Time Correction
- 3 Position 12 dB/Oct Crossover
- MediaXpander™
- SAT Radio Ready
- MP3 Text Information Display
- Quick Search Function
- CD/CD-R Playback
- CD Text, Text Display, Text Scroll
- M DAC
- MaxTune SQ Tuner
- 3 Auxilliary A/V Inputs with Remote Control Input
- Dedicated Navigation Input
- Dedicated Camera Input
- 2 Auxilliary Monitor A/V Outputs
- Navigation Audio Mix
- 3 PreOuts (4 volt)
- MM Driver (Hard Disc Drive) Ready
- MobileHub Ready
- Ai-NET Control Center DVD/CD/MP3 Changer Controller
- "Digital Art" Spectrum Analyzer Display
- RUE-4190 Universal Wireless Remote Control Included

If these all seems too much for you, Alpine car stereos also have more conventional head units to offer. The CDA-9835 Alpine car stereo In-Dash CD Player/Ai-Changer Controller lets you fully customize both illumination and sound, with a range of 512 colors and super-versatile Bass Engine functions like digital time correction and parametric EQ. You can download audio parameter settings and connect and control as many as eight amps. The BioLite display, Menu key and rotary knob make operation extremely easy.

Like most Alpine car stereo units, it is also SAT Radio Ready, giving you a much greater choice of listening options than ordinary local AM/FM radio. You can select from among a wide range of music genres, news, sports, and talk programs with digital quality anywhere.

Checking out the Alamo car rental

Checking out the Alamo car rental
One of the more popular and reputable car rental service in the country is the Alamo Car Rental company. It is highly recommended not only thorugh word of mouth, but in the internet as well. The Alamo car rental company is actually a blessing to constant travellers, especially those seeking a way to make their travels be as comfortable as possible, it is best to check out the Alamo car rental company and find out for yourself if they really as good when it comes to their services as they claim to be.

The Alamo car rental company actually gives its customers varied service programs that they can choose from, from corporate programs to governement contractor programs to meeting and events probrams. Alamo car rental has your back (plus your head) covered. They can actually provide you with whatever vehicle that you will want (depends on what you actually need that time).

Aside from quality service, Alamo car rental actually prides itself for being able to deliver unbeleivably cheaper rates (as compared with their rival car rental services agency) which just goes to show how Alamo car rental has been devoted to its consumer public. By sticking to cheaper rates, Alamo car rental agencies actually give their clients a good value for their money.
Alamo car rental is also a good choice for businessmen who are jetting off from one state to another, rather, from one country to another (thus the need for the private vehicle). They actually provide businessmen an exlcusive and unique “business travel program” which obviously is just focused on delivering the needs of valued and busy businessmen. 

Certain Alamo car rental policies and guidelines include the following:

Informing them about an additional driver as well as any disabilities or sickness and complications.
Your credit card number, basically how you’re planning fot Alamo car rental’s excellent service.
Proper papers, licenses and identification cards.

Well there are actually a lot more, But its really best to highlight the more important ones. The Alamo car rental service adheres these strict rules and guidelines in order to maintain service efficiency and their good reputation to the public.

Contacting them is actually just a breeze, if you’re not able to locate their listed number in the directory, you can just  search for their number instead, on the internet. The internet has a varied and incredibly enormous array of lists that will inevitably lead you to the Alamo’s car rental service’s number. However, you can also reach them through electronic mail. Geared towards providing unparalled service to its loyal customers as well as those who are still looking for a car service rental that they want to try out, Alamo car rental has provided the public with various ways of being able to reach them.

And speaking of trying their best to give their curtomers great service, Alamo car rental has actually equipped their vehivcles with other services that might possibly prove to be very useful to their clients. Upon request, one may avail of the various “add-ons’ that only Alamo car rental can provide. From carphones to kiddie chairs. Alamo car rental service has prided itself for always being in the forefront of the car rental industry. Be sure to check the out once you’re having some car rental problems, they’re sure they can help you out.

A garage addition

A garage addition

Does our older child need a little more liberty? Your work from home or
maybe you just feel that you need another room for a special project
that you want to start? Then the solution is to construct a
new addition to your garage.

By making an addition to your garage you can add to the living space in
your house, no matter what type of garage you own: detached or
attached to the house. The space above the garage can be converted into
a private living space for your older child, guests or a live-in parent.
You can convert your garage into your home office. You could very well
find here the peace and quiet needed  for your work. Also, the new addition
can be converted into a music studio if you put some simple sound
proofing measures into place.

In order to start planning for your garage addition, first prepare
a budget and then hire a professional because this is a complex
project. Also, you may need to hire an architect to help you with
the construction plans.

Affordable Online Car Auctions

Affordable Online Car Auctions
Still hunting for the car of your dreams? Public car auctions online are becoming a happy hunting ground for car aficionados for they bring you a huge selection of affordable cars in various models at unbelievable prices.
With online car auctions you can buy a new car at prices, which are quite less than the manufacturer’s price in the retail showroom. You can buy a car at price that you can afford. Automobile auctions have car prices which are among the most affordable and there are all kinds of options available to suit every kind of budget.
For instance, you can find all kinds of auto auctions online - from recreational vehicle auctions to buying used cars on line. Buying used cars online is a win-win situation for you for you can find cars that are practically new in their look and feel but have prices far less than the new ones. Some of the vehicles listed in internet vehicle auctions are still under factory warranty.
Internet auto auctions is open to the people residing anywhere. Online auto bidding auctions include quality vehicles, used luxury and economy cars and even online auctions for car parts and accessories

If you are on the hunt to buy your dream car, visit Auctions4Wheels.com < http://www.auctions4wheels.com/index.php > for some truly affordable online car auctions. Registration is FREE with this auction site. You can choose to place a bid and if successful you will receive a confirmation message. If your bid fails to outbid the current high bidder you will be offered the option to place a higher bid.

Written by: Kathy Jones

Advantages Of Owning Hybrid Cars

Advantages Of Owning Hybrid Cars
More and more people are turning to hybrid cars these days because of their promise of lesser fuel consumption and environmental friendliness. Hybrid cars, because they run on both fuel and battery-powered engines, eat up less fuel, thereby sparing the consumer the pain of falling prey to price pressures in the world oil market. In addition, it also emits significantly less smog pollutants in the air, compared to traditional fuel-operated cars.

Indeed, there are a lot of advantages to owning hybrid cars. This is why even the US government is starting to show support by welcoming more models into the country and by encouraging American auto makers like General Motors and Ford to make more units.

Here are some of the advantages of hybrid cars:

1) Efficiency

Hybrid cars are electrically operated and are thus able to function well and consistently at any motor speed. This is in contrast to conventional gas-powered engines, which tend to produce less power in low revolutions per minute episodes. Hybrid cars do not need to use transmissions to make their engines run at full capacity even at reduced speeds.

2) Economy

One of the advantages of hybrid cars is that the feature called "regenerative braking". Since a hybrid car works using both electric power and fuel power, each can function by itself or conjunction, depending on which is stronger at the time of use. This means that both engines complement each other and do not simply bog one when one of them becomes weaker.

3) Convenience

Because hybrid cars are part battery powered, they do not create huge holes on the pocket, compares to users of traditional cars who feel the pain of the continuing oil price increases. Most hybrid cars, particularly the ones that are made in Japan, are also more compact and lightweight, making them easier to maneuver on the road. Other models, particularly those by American and European car makers also do not deviate from the stylish designs their regular counterparts adopt, so users don't have to feel they are being left out in the style department.

4) Sustainability

Sure, hybrid cars are fairly new, so their immediate impact on the environment cannot be foreseen in the short term. However, over the course of time, the next generations will definitely be thankful for having a clean, pollution free world, thanks to hybrid vehicles.

Most critics say that it is not the time to buy hybrid vehicles because they are expensive. However, when you consider the advantages, you really shouldn't think twice. While you must be discerning in choosing the right model for your needs, this doesn't mean you start hesitating. After all, when more people patronize hybrid cars, manufacturers will see the need to produce more and eventually bring its price at very affordable levels.