Take the First Step toward Your Dream

When we realize our dreams, life asks us to do something about it. Then, it is essential to take the first step toward your dream journey. However, the hardest part of journey is this first step. What is the first step for you? Let me clear one thing. The first step is not just thinking about your dream. Here, first step means one action step that lay down a foundation for your dream. Most of the failures in this world occur just before this first step. Take an example. If you want to be a writer, just thinking about it will not make you one. Take first step and Start writing. If you cannot, learn it first. Join a class. Attend an event or Read a book. Do not just sit idle. You can start small. “One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.” ~ John Wanamaker You can become anything if you start working on it. The only limitation you have in your mind. If you do not step forward, you will stay at the same place. As Liz Smith said, “Begin somewhere; you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.” Why it is important to Begin? When our dreams are fresh, we are excited about them. Even just thinking about it can feel you with passion. At that time, we build many plans in our mind. As time go by, motivation factor gets diminishing. Why? Because, we keep think a lot and do not go beyond thinking. In the beginning, many fear factors stop us to make early decisions. Sometimes our doubt and sometimes there is fear of failure prevent us to begin. Remember: “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. What are the aspects that stop us taking our first step? Let us recognize and start working on them today. Why it is important to take the First Step toward Your Dreams: You will get out of your Comfortable Zone: You are not able to begin because it may take you to the uncomfortable zone. Remember, the highest growth lie when you get out of your comfortable zone. Get out and Fly high. You will learn along the Journey: You may fear starting something because you do not know much about the required skills. It is all right. Nobody is perfect here as perfection is a lifelong process. You may learn faster once the journey of your dreams start. You take one step, God will take two: If you take one step toward your destination, God will take two steps to help you. However, you have to be patience in the beginning and keep going. “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” ~ Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist You Vision will become clear: Do you have doubt in your potential? Once you will take action, all your doubts go away. You will be able to see your goal clearly. If your actions are not motivating you, it is not for yours. If you still doubt yourself, stop it. If you do not enjoy what you are doing, do something that passionate you. You will lose your Fear of Failure: When you start something, not everything goes as expected. Failures happen in life. It is all right to fail but never repeat the same mistake. Failures always offer us the biggest lessons of life. Maybe without that failure you could never explore some dimensions. As Japanese proverb, “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” You will see Unlimited Opportunities: Sometimes we give up our dreams because we do not see much opportunity. In the beginning of anything, we cannot really estimate the scope. Today, the world is full of opportunities that never existed earlier. You will see plenty of ways proceeding to your dream when you take the first step. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” ~ Lao Tzu

addsense

I. If you host your own website or can edit the HTML code, please complete the following steps:

1. Access the HTML source code of globalknock.blogspot.com.
2. Create a separate page on the site and paste the snippet:

This post confirms my ownership of the site and that this site adheres to Google AdSense program policies and Terms and Conditions: ca-pub-6843781513551477

3. Resubmit the application as described below after replacing globalknock.blogspot.com in the 'Website URL' with the URL of the page on which you have pasted the snippet.

II. If you would like to monetize your YouTube channel:

If you'd like to submit your YouTube channel for monetization, please apply for the YouTube partner program. If you've already been invited to become a YouTube partner, follow the instructions in the invitation email you received.

Please keep in mind that submitting a YouTube URL without an invitation to participate in the program won’t enable you to display Google ads in videos or on your channel page.

What Is Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is a process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site and ensuring that this ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site on tops. It basically involves fine tuning the content of your site along with the HTML and Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process. The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, AOL and Ask Jeeves. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine. New sites need not be "submitted" to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents. It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site.

If you are unable to research and choose keywords and work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues.

Search engine marketing and promotion companies, will look at the plan for your site and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and website traffic. If you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep your site traffic flow and your search engine ranking high. Normally your search engine optimization experts work with your web designer to build an integrated plan right away so that all aspects of design are considered at the same time.

Website as Storefronts

Website as Storefronts

A customer walks into the store, browses through products and shelves, picks up items, inspects, considers the prices, chooses a product and takes it to the cash register to pay. Now if you want to sell your products online, then your site must be enabled for e-commerce, where you must have the following features:

• You need to provide plenty of content and product description like sizes, dimensions, colors and comparisons with other similar products. It must allow the customer to choose a product, get a clear pricing and shipping costs on the product, complete the transaction and get an order number, and/or invoice confirmation via email. Allow your customer to choose a shipping method.
• You must tell the customer if the item is in stock or delivered against order. Ideally, you should have an email contact or live help if the customer has a question. Most importantly you must respond immediately! If you want to provide your own live chat and help desk services on your website, specialized softwares are available for purchase.
• Be sure your customer service links are large and clearly marked, so your client does not have to dig around to find information.
• Provide an ‘about us’ section or a section about your policies. If you have privacy statements and customer satisfaction policies, your customer will feel better about shopping in your store.
• You probably want to have customer quotes and references on the storefront page, as well, to let your prospective client know that others are happy with your service.
• Provide an FAQ with information about your return-back policies, guarantees, shipping prices and insurance charges if any.
• If you are so inclined, you can offer a print catalogue if the customer prefers to order one from your storefront and shop in the privacy of their homes.
• Do not annoy your customers by presenting products that are marked ‘sold’ or pages that say ‘under construction’ or ‘coming soon’.
• Do add new content frequently, so your returning customers will not be bored by seeing the same products they saw four months ago.
• If your site has got a date tag or has current references, be careful to change these references frequently so you don’t give the perception that nobody is attending or reading your site.

Web hosting Services and Domain names

Web hosting Services and Domain names

Choosing an appropriate domain name is very important. First and foremost, when it comes to domain names, try to stay away from the silly, stupid, ridiculous or clever. Keep your domain name simple and make it something your customers can remember if they lose the link to your business website.

Take note that, while your domain name on Geocities or AOL may seem like the least expensive way to go, it may also get you dropped from certain search engines. Some search engines ignore domain addresses that reside on these ‘free servers’ or on the ‘cheap’ servers.

Even if your site is recognized and considered by search engines, a professional domain name that uses your primary company name or associated words is likely to get more attention and be considered as a stable business by your prospective customers.

Purchasing domain names are not that expensive which cost about $100 and there are many companies that can register the name for you, provided it is available and has not already been used by another company.

Using one of your keywords in your domain name can increase your score on some search engines. For example, solderingirons.com could be more effective as Electric-soldering-irons.com, if that domain name was available.

You might also choose to establish more than one domain name using keywords and then link your ‘doorway’ domain sites to your primary site. But you will have to pay for each of the domain name and also the monthly hosting fees. It all depends on the type and size of your business and your competition.

Keep in mind that some search engines disregard ‘doorway’ sites. So put at least a page of content on the doorway site with some useful information and then link it to your primary site. But don’t design it as an empty page. The other reason being, you can have one, three, five, or even more email addresses that all contain your business name, and give your business a professional feel. When customers get emails from dominicstone@solderingirons.com they feel as if they are dealing with a stable, professional business operation.

No need for customers to understand how you manage all your email boxes on your domain. They just need to feel your business is dependable and reputable.

Web Hosting Companies

Web Hosting Companies

With thousands of web hosting companies in the market it can be difficult if not impossible to know which web site hosting companies truly provide an excellent hosting solution at an excellent price. When you have an established domain name with a good web hosting company, you can get reports on your traffic and which of your pages your customers are visiting most often, as well as many other statistics.

Your web host will charge you a fee for monthly service that ranges from $10 or $20 to the more expensive $50.00 per month. Plan to pay between $300 and $500 per year to your web host.

Always avoid free or very inexpensive web hosting services, because you may experience bouts of server downtimes and you are likely to have significant limitations in storage, number of email addresses, FTP upload etc.

Be sure your web host can accommodate e-commerce and storefronts, wireless capability, bogs, forums, chats, online interactive helps and anything else you want to add onto your site.

Estimate what your growth needs are and ensure that this web host can serve you as you grow. The last thing you want to do is change host mid way unless you absolutely have to do so.

Check your bandwidth capability to be sure that, if your website traffic grows rapidly, your customers will not have to wait to download or view information. Three things to look for in a web hosting company are:

1. Excellent Customer Support: Your hosting provider should be there for you 24/7 and give you instant access to the technicians you need to solve your problem. Ask them how long it takes for them to typically respond to your problem. A good test is to call them in the mid night to check if you get to a live, level 3 support.

2. A Sound Infrastructure: Check whether they offer a multi-homed network powered by multiple bandwidth providers to ensure redundancy. Some offer a 100% guarantee on its network availability or network uptime.

3. Financial Stability: If you're running very critical operations, you can't afford to be with a hosting company that may not be in business in a few months.

Use Keywords In Page Titles

Use Keywords In Page Titles

It is recommended to use keywords in page titles itself. This title tag is different from a Meta tag, but it's worth considering it in relation to them. Whatever text one places in the title tag (between the <title> and </title> portions) will appear in the title bar of browsers when they view the web page. Some browsers also append whatever you put in the title tag by adding their own name, as for example Microsoft's Internet Explorer or OPERA.

The actual text you use in the title tag is one of the most important factors in how a search engine may decide to rank your web page. In addition, all major web crawlers will use the text of your title tag as the text they use for the title of your page in your listings.

If you have designed your website as a series of websites or linked pages and not just a single Home Page, you must bear in mind that each page of your website must be search engine optimized. The title of each page i.e. the keywords you use on that page and the phrases you use in the content will draw traffic to your site.

The unique combination of these words and phrases and content will draw customers using different search engine terms and techniques, so be sure you capture all the keywords and phrases you need for each product, service or information page.

The most common mistake made by small business owners when they first design their website is to place their business name or firm name in every title of every page. Actually most of your prospective customers do not bother to know the name of your firm until after they have looked at your site and decided it is worth book marking.

So, while you want your business name in the title of the home page, it is probably a waste of valuable keywords and space to put it in the title line of every page on your site. Why not consider putting keywords in the title so that your page will display closer to the top of the search engine listing.

Dedicating first three positions for keywords in title avoiding the stop words like ‘and’, ‘at’ and the like is crucial in search engine optimization