Monday, April 28, 2008

Job Interview Advice

For most of us, looking for a job is no fun. Whether planned or unplanned, the job search is typically rife with stress, hoping you'll find a job that both provides a satisfactory income and is personally fulfilling. One of the most intimidating aspects of a job search is the interview. Each job interview offers new and unexpected questions. Before you line up an interview, it's always best to plan and anticipate questions, as well as developing your interview “attitude”, to make your presentation of you and your skills the best possible. What you need is some solid job interview advice, to make your case and land the job.

One little known aspect of the job interview process is that the prospective employer may be as fearful as you are! The employer doesn't want to make a poor decision which will reflect badly on them in the future. In a typical job interview, the prospective employer will naturally grill you mercilessly, to be sure you are a good match for their requirements. If you understand this in advance, you can use this knowledge to your advantage. Use this job interview advice and make yourself a success story.

Topping the list of job interview advice is to make your initial contact count. You must gain the employer's attention with a good cover letter and resume, selling you and your skills. Individualize your cover letter to the specific company for which you hope to work. Do some research on the company to see how you might fit in to their environment. For example, if you're applying for a job as a mechanic with a dealer and you have extensive experience in their make of car, include this in your cover letter.

Employers are looking for people who are hard working, responsible and honest. So if you're wanting to get job interview advice in a nutshell, promote these characteristics. If you have a reputation for reliability, initiative and responsibility, blow your horn. Employers worry about absenteeism and slackers. A new hire could cost them their jobs if they don't detect these traits in the interviewee.

Also high on the list of job interview advice is your appearance. You want to make a good impression, the first time you meet with the prospective employer. Whatever your prospect, make your appearance count. Dress appropriately. If you're going for a marketing job, you'll want to come to your interview dressed to the nines. Are you looking for a job as a waitress? Dress yourself up as attractively as possible, showing a pleasing appearance. Most importantly, convey a feeling of “can do”. In the forum of job interview advice, the constant byword is to sell your skills and personality.

Be prepared for the inevitable question, “What's your greatest weakness?” Turn this to your advantage. “I'm sometimes teased as a 'workaholic' because I like to finish my work and sometimes stay late to do so.”

Two words can summarize the best job interview advice: be prepared!

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Article On Asian Wedding Reception

Are you looking for Asian wedding favors to make your wedding reception special for your guests? There are many different types of themed wedding favors that you can get even Asian ones.

You just have to be willing to take the time to look for them. You can find the Asian wedding favors that you want at a local store near you if that is how you prefer to get them. You can also go online to do your searching.

There are many websites online that have all different kinds of wedding favors to look at. Before you decide which ones you want to use just make sure you look at different favors. That way you can make sure you get the exact ones you want.

There are many ideas that you can choose from. Here are some ideas to start with.

One: Make your own Asian wedding favors. You can make a party of this with friends and family if you don't want to do it alone. One very popular favor that you can make yourself is paper lanterns. Though you can also get these already made.

Two: Look for unique wedding favors such as cookie boxes or fake fortune cookies. These are perfect to match with this theme because they are distinctly Asian.

Three: Another idea is take out boxes. They will be admired by your wedding guests for its simplistic design and versatility. They can be used to place your favors into one neat and very lovely package which is secured by a black band and complimentary tie ribbon.

You can offer your guests small trinkets or wrapped chocolates. These can be placed in an Asian take out box as well.

Five: Other favors that go well with his theme include hand fans, paper lanterns, chop sticks, sake cups, lucky cats, and Asian wedding centerpieces that your guests can take home with them.

Remember that the wedding favors that you choose need to let your guests know that you are very glad they are spending your special day with you. By matching the wedding souvenirs to the theme of your Asian wedding you are really making it even more special for all of you.

These are just a few of the ideas that will help you get started. One thing you want to remember is that when you can get Asian wedding favors that can be personalized, it will add a special touch for your wedding guests.

News On Industries And Business In U S A

Right from their inception in the late 1940s, readability formulas revolutionized the writing style of everyone. Readability formulas affect every industry because of their all-appealing premise. These formulas make documents or text "readable" for the intended audience. Every industry has a target audience when it prepares any kind of text.

BUSINESSES

Many business owners and organizations constantly seek new ways to save money and increase profits. One such money-saving measure is to use readability formulas on all documents and materials. Readability formulas let you know if your text is readable by your target audience (your customers, suppliers, employees, etc). Studies show that readable text matched to the grade-level of your readers can increase their interest and improve your results to get your message across.

MILITARY and GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

Military exercises involve many assessment tests for the trainees. Through these tests, the military determines the aptitude, cognitive skills, general learning ability, ability to perform on the job, and so on. These tests are vital for military training. Besides tests, the military uses training manuals to provide general and special training for personnel. If these important texts lack readability -- either too low or too high in readability -- the purpose of preparing these manuals is wasted. Using readability formulas before publishing these training manuals ensures trainees can process and understand the texts, and it can save time and money that you would have spent revising these texts.

PUBLISHING COMPANIES

The Internet era has helped the publishing industry explode into new media. We have publishers in print medium (newspapers, magazines, journals, books, textbooks, novels, etc.), television, radio, and the Internet. Whether you publish online or offline, you need to make your products as reader-friendly as possible to attract new readers and build a loyal customer base. Using readability formulas can help you publish readable text for your readers.

Readable books help promote student independence by encouraging self-selection of books, and also help teachers, librarians, and parents assist students in choosing grade-level books. Students won't shy away from choosing additional books if they find their books informative and readable.

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

The Healthcare Industry is paramount to any nation's economy. A vibrant healthcare industry ensures a healthy nation, and ensures a flourishing lifestyle for its citizens. It is vital to adopt simple modes of communications between healthcare professionals and their patients. One such way to improve communications in healthcare is by using readability formulas on documents as a means to communicate effectively with staff, patients, and healthcare suppliers. Readability formulas can improve patient education and awareness. Patients need to understand their ailments, prescribed drugs, risks and side effects of the drugs, clinical tests, when to contact their doctors, when to seek immediate medical attention, and so on. All of this is accomplished by communicating with the patient through written communications, verbal instructions, multimedia, etc. Many patients need written instructions for long-term reference, and they need to understand their healthcare material in simple terms. Using readability formulas can help hospitals prepare material that patients can read and understand at their reading-level.

INSURANCE INDUSTRY

An insurance policy is a legal document between the insurance company and the policyholder, and entails serious legal implications in case of a dispute. The insurance contract involves an elaborate documentation explaining the powers and liabilities of the parties to the contract. It contains lots of legalese and is often difficult to decipher the exact requirements and implications of an insurance policy. This difficult-to-read document is one major reason insurance disputes go to court. To help policyholders understand their policies, insurance companies should write their insurance documents in plain English, using simple words and sentences. Readability formulas can help the insurance industry to simplify their documents.

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES

The primary role of the education sector is to distill good education to students at different grade levels. Written text in the form of textbooks, journals, literature and so on, forms the backbone of a good education system. A "good" text forms the basis of a good learning experience for students. The definition of a "good" text includes its readability aspect, i.e., the text should be reader-friendly and should neither be too difficult nor too easy to read. It should be easy enough to comprehend and difficult enough to contribute to students' academic development. Readability formulas help assess and develop textbooks and other written material for the exact grade level. For instance, if you've prepared textbooks for third grade level students and the appropriate readability formula tells you the textbooks are for the fifth grade level, it's better to revise the text for easier reading.

Monday, March 24, 2008

About Article Marketing

Chris Ellington is the CEO and Founder of Article Marketer. With over 20 years of marketing experience and expertise, he works with small business owners, clarifying strategic business initiatives. He guides them in focusing on the most important and profitable aspects of their businesses. Less than a year old, the Article Marketer site already serves thousands of authors and has successfully completed more than 3.3 million article submissions.

Question: I stumbled across your site by accident one day when I was approving articles on a list I owned. That's how I found you. Tell me how you got started in article writing and promotion.

Answer: Content is the foundation of any internet marketing campaign. No matter what you choose to do, whether it's hard-core SEO, Google AdWords, search enging marketing, email marketing, or any other form of online marketing - the web is fundamentally built around content.

Creating and providing content to the literally millions of content sites and newsletters just seemed to be a smart move. Did you know that there are now more websites on the net than there are people on the planet? The webmasters of those sites simply don't have time to create the sheer volume of content they need to fill their newsletters.

I started sending articles to people who wanted content, and I was amazed at the results. More targeted traffic started showing up at my various sites. With more targeted traffic comes greater conversion - which means more people to opt-in to my lists, more affiliates join my programs, and more sales of my products and services.

The problem was I was spending too much time submitting articles by hand. I knew there had to be a better way. There were services to do article submission - some charging up to $400 per article! - and there was software to download and install - but I was still chained to my desk to do the actual submission work.

My consulting work with small business owners had taught me that what the market needed was a low-cost, automated, hands-free solution. I set out to build a service that would alleviate all of the problems that I'd seen with article marketing: either time-consuming and tedious drudgework or high expense for the author, while being spam-ridden for the newsletter editors and content site owners.

I put together a team and we created completely automated submission, free article review to help each author get better results, and a team human-spam-blockers who make sure that spam never goes through our servers. Article submission is affordable to small business owners through a unique subscription model that allows an author to submit an unlimited number of articles without having to factor in the expense of each and every article.

Question: What changes have you seen in article writing and promotion since you started your service?

Answer: The article marketing landscape is constantly changing. Some once very popular article sites have completely vanished, overwhelmed by spam and the sheer volume of new articles being submitted. At the same time, new sites come online all the time. Keeping up with these changes is almost a full time job.

As people started understanding that they could get one-way (as opposed to reciprocal) links, better search engine placement, improved pagerank, more traffic and sales just from writing articles, we've seen the inevitable entry of spammers into the market. These are people who are not interested in providing good content, but only want a free link in someone's newsletter.

The result is that the article directories and content site owners are putting more restrictions on the articles they'll accept. While in the early days we could submit short (150-250 word) articles, these days if an article isn't at least 400 words, it's unlikely to be accepted. A number of sites have now banned the use of 'tinyurl' URL replacements because spammers mask their affiliate links or links to bad neighborhoods.

It used to be that we could incorporate URLs into the article body, but more and more article sites are rejecting anything they find with a .com address. We have worked out an arrangement with most of the content sites to allow the specific use of URLs under certain circumstances, and we teach our authors how they can effectively incorporate URLs into their articles and yet avoid having their accounts banned.

We've seen a surge of "Private Label" articles in the market. These are canned, pre-written articles that people can buy and submit under their own names. Unfortunately, only the first few people who submit those articles are successful, everyone else is an "also ran". Private Label articles are like jokes on the internet. The first time you see one, it's funny. The 50th time it's just annoying.

Question: What do you think article writers should be aware of when writing articles?

Answer: There are three rules when it comes to writing articles:

Rule #1: Provide Good Content
Rule #2: Provide Good Content
Rule #3: When in doubt, see Rules #1 and #2

If you follow those three rules, you'll do just fine. What is "good content"? It's approximately 750 words that allows the reader to come away with some knowledge that wasn't there before. Focus on a topic and make sure that the reader gets something of value at the end.

Authors should ask themselves this question: Must a reader buy my product/service in order to take action?

If the answer is "yes", then go back to the drawing board. Of course, the author may need to substitute "visit my website", "subscribe to my newsletter" or any of a dozen other calls to action based on the author's desires.

When providing newsletter content, it's important to remember that you are speaking directly to a specifically targeted audience. These are people who have subscribed to "Dog Weekly" or "Fish Tank Monthly", so if your thing is dogs or fish tanks, this is your perfect audience. Put your best foot forward. Give them really good information and they'll want to visit your site for more information. At that point you can sell them something.

Another important point is that articles stay on the article banks forever. When you include a call to action in your resource box, make sure it's not a 'limited time offer'. Don't use contact information that might go away. It's always best to send your readers to a website you control (and can update) so that if your email address or phone number changes, they will still be able to reach you.

Question: Share a few of your best article writing tips with us.

Answer: The title is key. It's the first thing people see and the first decision they make about your article. If they don't get past the title, they'll never read the rest.

A title should never be a noun. If you have a great article about fish tanks, and you title it "Fish Tanks", you're unlikely to get as many readers as you would with, for instance "How to Keep Your Fish Tank Sparkly Clean" (assuming, of course, that the article is about keeping a fish tank clean.) Add some action and some excitement to your title to draw people into the content.

Your article itself should be about one thing. Don't try to cover all aspects or every angle in a single article. Break it down into component parts and explain the most important points.

Try not to write a multi-part article series. I know that goes against some other advice you may have heard, but there are some important reasons to avoid multipart articles.

The first problem is that a reader may not have access to the other parts. How terrible would it be to find "Fish tanks Part 2" and not know how to find the first part? The second problem is that newsletter publishers may not be willing to commit to running all 16 parts of your masterpiece, and so will not print any of your work. Each article you write must be able to stand on its own, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Don't require that a reader be fluent in parts 1-3 before they read part 4. Never end your article with "to be continued..." or "the rest of this article can be found on my website..." because the content site owners are expecting you to provide content - all of it - in exchange for the link and the targeted audience they'll be delivering to you.

Question: What trends do you see in article writing and promotion, and what do you think the future holds for article writing and promotion?

Answer: We're seeing a shift in the marketplace. While at one time only "polished authors" would submit their articles, it's become much more common to get really good articles from average business owners.

People who have never written an article before are discovering that it isn't that hard. Our editors help them put out a good quality article the first time through. I can't tell you the number of emails we get thanking us for the detailed assistance provided by our review team. Anyone can write an article about a topic they're passionate about (and isn't that why they started a business in the first place?) and they can create interesting content just based on their own experiences.

I believe that the surge of "Private Label" articles will go away as people discover that only original content actually delivers the results of marketing with articles. While re-writing those articles can be effective, just replacing certain words with synonyms is not enough. You can't expect a dog newsletter owner to put "Combing Your Mutt" in the newsletter after publishing "Grooming Your Dog" in last week's newsletter.

I think people are getting more excited about bringing their own expertise to the fore. Different dog groomers can write about combing dogs and have each of them published in the dog newsletter, because each tells a specific story or anecdote, provides original tips and tricks learned "in the trenches", and brings a fresh perspective to the subject.

Will article writing and submission ever go the way of banner ads, pop ups, and FFA sites? No, because content is the foundation of the web. Other forms of marketing have come and gone - even email marketing is difficult these days - but anyone who provides good content to the content-hungry audience will see their work published all around the net, will get links from relevant sites, will see their pagerank increase, and will get more targeted traffic to their websites.

Advice on Interview

An interview process can often be one of the most stressful times you can go through. You have to sell yourself and your experiences to a person or group of people that you don't know in an environment completely new to you. They can ask you all sorts of questions and you don't know if you will be able to answer them. You feel vulnerable and this is a stressful sensation.

After all that bad news there is some good tidings. You can reduce the stress of a job interview significantly by following the simple guidelines below.

First off, adhere to the old adage : if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail. You must prepare for the interview thoroughly.

This includes some basic research of the company. Things like their history, the CEO, topical news items about the company and the people that will be interviewing you and their relationship to the job. The chances are that you may not need all this information. But it would make a great impression if you could make a comment about the latest piece of news on the company. This will allow you to converse with the interviewers about non-interview topics and develop a relationship with them. This can relieve the stress of talking to strangers.

You should think about the likely questions that you will be asked and formulate answers to them. You can practise answering these questions aloud or write notes about the answer to study. This will give you confidence that you will be able to answer some of the questions satisfactorily.

Be sure that your suit or attire is dry cleaned and ready to wear a week before the interview. It can take a few days to get clothing cleaned and you don't want to be thinking about it. That includes a haircut, don't wait until the day before, get it done a week before. You want as little stress inducing activities as possible for the days before the interview.

Work out how you will get to the interview and estimate the time it will take. Make a dry run of the trip before the interview if you want to be exact. If you are taking public transport always give yourself extra time for delays or missed connections. It is important that you arrive on time, not just in the eyes of the potential employers but your own peace of mind

On the day of the interview the challenge is to stay calm and focused on the objective. You are giving a honest account of your personality, skills and abilities. You are also going to find out if the job is right for you. The interview is a two way process. You are asking them questions and they are selling their company to you. This is a good way to reduce the stress that you are giving a performance and they are there to judge you. This will also develop a dialogue during the interview and show that you are enthusiastic about the job.

An important technique when answering questions is to relate your personal experiences/skills to the question asked rather than change the subject by talking about unrelated things in the eyes of the interviewers. This will keep the interview on track and give it a sense of continuity.

Finally, you should thank the interviewer for the opportunity and ask when you are likely to hear from them. You can send a follow up message if you have not heard from them by then.

Monday, March 3, 2008

Optimise The Website With Research Articles

How to Optimize Your Website Content for Google

There are a variety of things to do in order to optimize your website so you can receive organic website traffic from Google. When doing keyword research – articles and website content alike, it is very important that you find a high searched, low competitive keyword for your domain name. This will increase the chances of Google putting your website on the first page of their results.

Also be sure to put the keywords in the h1 title tags and throughout the whole article. If you have any sub-domains, be sure to put keywords in those as well. All this will increase the chances of Google crawlers to indexing your webpage, and ultimately putting you in the top of search results for that keyword.

If you’re writing articles to attract Google

When you find a great keyword that you would love to use for the search engines, make sure you put the keyword throughout the article, especially in the beginning of the article. When you do this Google crawlers will see your article as a highly authoritative webpage on that particular subject. It is very important that you keyword optimize every single one of your articles.

What are the best tools for keyword research

The best tools for keyword research would probably be the overture keyword suggestion tool. Just type in “overture keyword suggestion tool” in the google search and it should show up. It can be inaccurate from time to time however. The best tool I have come across is probably Brad Callen’s: Keyword Elite. Make sure you do all the research you can before you invest money in a keyword tool.

I'm horrible at gambling.
I'm not athletic.
I have no musical talent, I absolutely can not sing or dance.

But I Can Sure Find A Dang Good Keyword

Statistical Health And Research Articles

It seems that our medical professionals cannot agree on anything. For every medical opinion that is given, you will be able to find a doctor that will give an opposite opinion. This can be very frustrating if you are trying to find a diagnosis. This can also be very frustrating if you have to change doctors due to insurance and find that they feel you were given miss information by your previous physician.

I recently went through a situation where I was looking for answers for the severe back pain I was in. I had been to general practitioners, as well as a group of specialists. My appointments included three different cities and five different doctor’s offices. I know ever inch of five different waiting rooms. As I spent time waiting for test results and appointments I read many health articles in the magazines in the waiting rooms. I was beginning to see a pattern in the health articles. If one health magazine had a topic that was featured another magazine would have a similar topic and or rebuttal article the next month. The doctors that write the health articles seem to enjoy proving each other wrong. At times it seems that their main objective is to disagree. This makes me suspicious of health articles. I start to wonder how much of the article is fact and how much is the opinion of the doctor.

As with all research, health articles can present statistics in such a way that they can claim a theory is proven or they can claim the opposite. I was talking to my nephew about this. He is a pharmaceutical researcher. He agreed that the health articles can be very misleading, especially if they are based on research that has not been verified. He explained that there are so many articles written because a researcher needs to have a certain number of publications each year to fulfill requirements for grants, fellowships and scholarships. Often times the researcher does not have the time to do an in depth article, so they read another person’s published work and create a rebuttal article. He pointed out that this is why you do not see many of the health magazines any place but in the doctor’s office. The health articles are not very interesting, factual or well written. He did tell me that the health articles that are written in more popular magazines are usually well researched and written better because they are written by professional writers rather than researchers.